Lean Six Sigma

The Belts

Their mastery of the method and leadership style, fully qualify them to resolve key operational challenges to the business with their problem-solving teams. The approach and tools learned during Black Belt training stay with them throughout their career.

The Black Belt receives the highest level of training in Six Sigma and in Lean Manufacturing, and becomes the major vector of process transformation in his or her organisation. Black Belts are trained to use problem-solving tools and to lead improvement-project teams at all levels within the company including at General Management level: as such, they are autonomous in all aspects of the method. An organisation choosing to deploy Lean Six Sigma trains about 1% of its total workforce to be full-time Black Belts.
The Green Belt receives the second level of training in Six Sigma and Lean Manufacturing techniques: he or she is trained to lead Lean Six Sigma project teams and Kaizen Events within the area of his or her direct responsibility. Green Belts are competent, continuous improvement team members and effective contributors to complex Black-Belt led projects . Typically 15% of the workforce is trained to Green Belt level in a full deployment.
Yellow Belts are trained at the foundation level of Lean Six Sigma to become informed and competent members of Green-Belt continuous improvement teams.
The Lean Kaizen Leader is specially trained to apply simple Lean methods using Kaizen Events, a fast, team approach used in TPS: it ensures fast gains due to full-time teamwork typically during 3 to 5 days.