Ravindra Kulkarni

There are three proficiency levels in Six Sigma. 1) Green Belt 2) Black Belt and 3) Master Black Belt Most of the companies introduced White Belt and Yellow Belt to drive continuous improvement using Lean Methodology and not necessarily using a DMAIC framework. Green Belt: Individuals who certified works within Six Sigma teams under the supervision of Black Belts or Master Black Belts. Green Belts are considered the key resource of the Six Sigma methodology because they perform all the activities required in Define, Measure, Analyze and improve under the supervision of certified Black Belts. Green Belts are trained on the following · Six Sigma roles · Lean Concepts · Common Six Sigma metrics · Project Charter and team management · Data Types · Data collection · Measurement system analysis · Probability and the Central Limit Theorem · Statistical distributions · Descriptive statistics · Quality tools such as Pareto charts, run charts, control charts, scatter diagrams, box plot and histograms · Hypothesis Testing · Root cause analysis · Failure mode and effects analysis · Minitab or Excel Examples – 1) Reduction of turnaround time. 2) Reduction or elimination of duplicate payments 3) Reduction of defects in a manufacturing process 4) Error reduction in Finance & Accounting processes 5) Reduce customer complaints, customer returns etc., Black Belt: Black belts are the leaders on the projects related to process improvements. They mentor Green Belts on Six Sigma projects and guide them through the DMAIC framework. Black belts training include everything listed for Green Belt in addition to: · Advanced project and team management skills · Knowledge of the expansive list of Six Sigma brainstorming and project tools · Intermediate to advanced statistics · Process improvement using Lean methodology and Total Quality Management · An ability to design processes · Advanced capabilities for mapping processes like flow charts and value stream maps Examples – 1) Increase process throughput by $ xxx 2) Reduce bulk material cost by $ xxx 3) Reduce warranty costs by x% 4) Reduce bad debts by x% 5) Reduce freight cost by $ xxx 6) Reduce process downtime and scrap 7) Improving cash flow management by x% Master Black Belt: A Master Black Belt is the highest certification level achievable for Six Sigma. In business organization, Master Black Belts Supervise Black Belts and Green Belts. They are often consulted large transformation projects. They offer strategic advice and education on advanced statistical concepts, business simulation etc. They act as catalysts of change management and train others in Six Sigma methodology.

A Scrum master should identify and remove impediments that keep the team from operating as efficiently as possible. An impediment could be anything that hold the team/s from getting the work done and that slows the amount of work a Team can tackle during a single Sprint. Most impediments are a form of waste that come in many forms. If its blocking the teams from doing their work, it’s an impediment. Some examples of impediments · Unplanned leaves in teams. · Not having access to the required software to do the job. · Lack of management support, pressure from management. · Knowledge gap in the team · Team members working on multiple projects · Frequent changes in team composition · Conflict between team members · Too many unimportant meetings the development team has to attend Below are the few actions the scrum master should take to address the impediments · Should create an environment where raising impediments can occur · Should clearly distinguish between blocks and impediments · Identify and implement process improvements · Should ensure that the team understands and adheres to best Scrum practices · Should facilitate scrum events and should make sure that they are positive, productive, and kept within the time limit. · Should coach the team and help them to be self-organized and self-managed · Should ensure that team is cross-functional · Should keep the team focused on the Sprint Goal and project/product goal · Should find techniques for effective Product Goal definition and Product Backlog management · Should facilitate stakeholder collaboration as requested or needed · Should represent the team to the rest of the organization · Should protect the team from interruptions · Should keep the teams morale high Should not spend time on solving the wrong problem

A tree map is a data visualization technique to display hierarchical-ordered (tree-structured) set of data using nested rectangles. The size of the rectangles are organized from largest to the smallest. Colours are used to differentiate items within same category. Tree map works well when the hierarchical data has two dimensions. A positive numerical value and Categorical value. Many organizations often use Tree map to visualise sales data as it captures the relative size of data categories. The goal is not to indicate the exact sales values, but to “break” the dataset into its constituent parts and quickly identify its larger and smaller components. Tree maps are considered an alternative to pie charts, which are often used to visualize “Part to Whole” relationships. The efficient use of physical space and the intelligent colour management make them an exceptional tool to visualize a significant volume of information in a wide variety of business analytical applications.

Dark Data is defined as the data resources that businesses gather and keep as part of their normal business operations and protocols, but do not use — for example, data analytics, decision making, monetizing etc., Challenges associated with Dark Data: 1. Dark data is mostly unstructured. It takes enormous human effort to data wrangling and make it usable. 2. High Storage Cost: If dark data is not actively managed, it can turn in to clutter and end up taking valuable space on storage devices, slowing down the servers. If dark data grows, the maintenance and storage cost will grow as well. Advantages: 1. Businesses can utilize dark data to extract useful insights which otherwise would have remained hidden. These insights will help decision making, reduce risk and increase ROI. 2. Dark data has potential to create new revenue streams, streamlining processes and reduce costs. It helps understand the relationships between apparently unrelated pieces of information. Companies like Google, Amazon, Facebook make extensive use of dark data. Stitch Fix an online subscription shopping service uses images from social media and other sources to understand emerging fashion trends and evolving customer needs. They make clients answer a detailed questionnaire about their tastes in clothing. With client permission, the companies data science team augments that information by scanning clothes images on customers social media platforms. From the insights generated, they gain a deeper understanding of each customer’s sense of style and customise their product offerings.

Thematic analysis is method used to identify patterns or clusters of related data. This method is used to analyse qualitative / non - numeric data. This type of analysis is predominantly performed on data collected through survey's. Most of the organisations roll out employee survey to understand how satisfied and motivated the employees are working for the organisation. In this example, org ABC rolled out a survey and the results were not really good. They decided to initiate a Six Sigma project to improve the ESAT score by X%. As the data collected is from the survey results and it's qualitative in nature, they use thematic analysis to identify patterns or clusters of related data, themes emerging from the respondents concerns, employees perceived problems etc.,

Latin Square design helps us to control the variation in two directions. Factors are arranged in rows and columns. Below are couple of examples Latin Square Design is generally used. 1. Trials in agriculture. If there is a agricultural land, the fertility of this land might change in both directions, East – West and North – South due to the moisture levels in the air or soil of the land. In this example of the agricultural land, we might have blocked it in columns and rows. Now, each row is a level of row factor and each column a level of column factor. We can remove the variation in both the directions if we consider both rows and columns as factors in our design. 2. Trials in greenhouses where pots are arranged in a straight line perpendicular to the walls such that the distance between the pots and the wall are the sources of variability.

Organisations who use DMAIC to improve processes often take months to reach the analyse phase. Business modelling practitioners know the importance of time in implementing the change initiatives in an organization. Simulation is one way to accelerate change. “ A simulation is the imitation of the operation of a real-world process or system over time. Simulations require the use of models; the model represents the key characteristics or behaviours of the selected system or process, whereas the simulation represents the evolution of the model over time. Often, computers are used to execute the simulation”. Source wikipedia Business Modelling is a replication of real world processes using simulation models which use business assumptions, Decision making and Forecasting. Below are the reasons why Business Modelling and Simulation can accelerate the DMAIC sequence of an improvement project. Simulation eliminates the measure and analyse phase. Simulation models can work on large datasets, can run 1000 of trails taking into account process variances, uncertainties and interdependencies and provide multiple solutions. Running Simulation models doesn’t interfere with day to day work in an organization. Impact on operations, processes and customers can be measured and visualised.