Black Belts, Green Belts

In Six Sigma, the black belt and green belt names are just a tool for defining levels of expertise and experience. That’s all they are. So you know that a black belt has more experience than a green belt, and a green belt has even more experience than a yellow belt. They do not change or replace the organizational roles in the Six Sigma process.

According to [Thomsett, 2005] the levels of expertise for master black belt, black belt, and green belt are:

MASTER BLACK BELT a consultant (sometimes the coach) available to the
Six Sigma team to resolve technical issues or to answer questions.
BLACK BELT an experienced participant in the Six Sigma process, usually
given the role of team leader, who is responsible for ensuring that
the benefits of Six Sigma projects are realized.
GREEN BELT the sponsor or a key team member with a degree of experience
above the average team member, or who plays a key role in helping
the sponsor manage the scheduling and assignments within a project.

The Roles of A Six Sigma Implementation

A Six Sigma implementation more often than not will involve the whole organization, and almost every author remarks that a Six Sigma initiative has to be backed up by the top management. That’s probably because such endeavour means change on business processes, operational processes, and any possible area that affects the performance of the processes that will be improved. That requires commitment of the highest level of the organization to support the changes.

Besides the support of top management, the Six Sigma iniative is to be pushed forward by the following roles into the organization:

Top Management that defines the specific goals of a Six Sigma process, the provider of goals to be met by the team.
Sponsor Has the responsibility to find the solution, to achieve the goals top management has set for the project. Usually is a manager, and most of the time is the process owner too.

Implementation Leader the person responsible for supervising the Six Sigma team effort, who supports the leadership council by ensuring that the work of the team is completed in the desired manner.
Coach the Six Sigma expert or consultant who sets a schedule, defines results of a project, and who mediates conflicts or deals with resistance to the program.
Team Leader the individual responsible for overseeing the work of the team, and for acting as go-between with the sponsor and the team members; the person who manages the schedule.
Team member an employee who works on a Six Sigma project, given specific duties within a project, and deadlines to meet in reaching specific projectgoals.
Process Owner the individual who takes on responsibility for a process after a Six Sigma team has completed its work.

Six Sigma Black Belt Training

In terms of the DMAIC project black belts are involved in the MAIC stages of it, the Definition stage is mostly reserved for top management. The black belt role then needs to receive the proper training in several areas of the business. It is unlikely that an organization finds a Black Belt outside, instead of that it should focus on identifying the potential black belts and give them the proper training to lead the Six Sigma initiative.

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REFERENCES & FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Thomsett, Michael C.(2005) "Getting Started in Six Sigma"
John Wiley & Sons

Pyzdek, Thomas; Keller, Paul A.(2009) "The Six Sigma Handbook, Third Edition"
McGraw-Hill

Six Sigma Certification