Is Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Exam gateway for Certificate?
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certificate is an advanced Six Sigma Certificate. The Certified Six Sigma Black Belt professional is an expert who can comprehend the supporting systems and tools, as well as the Six Sigma theories and principles. They exhibit team leadership skills and have a thorough understanding of every facet of the DMAIC methodology as per Six Sigma guidelines. Additionally, they have a fundamental understanding of lean enterprise concepts, are able to identify non-value-added inputs and outputs, and can put particular tools to use.
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certificate is the most sought‐after and industrial-recognized certificate. Black Belts have undergone extensive training in the application of advanced statistical analytic methods and lean concepts to enhance performance. These individuals also acquire the skills necessary to solve quality issues, make better decisions, enhance organization performance overall, manage process practices, and enhance performance.
Why Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Exam mandatory to obtain the certificate?
The Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certificate requires passing the Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Exam. Candidates must complete Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Training and pass the exam conducted at the end of the course. The exam gauges the candidate's comprehensive understanding of the tools and Lean Six Sigma principles. Additionally, it assesses their technical and analytical understanding of how to use Lean tools like process mapping, Kaizen, 5S, etc. to cut waste and solve issues with process development.
The Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certification Examination conducted by Unichrone consists of two parts – A & B. Part A will have 100 multiple-choice questions and 180 minutes long. Part B consists of a project submission carrying 50 marks. In order to qualify for Part B, candidates must pass the open book Part A exam. After completing Part A, candidates have eight months from the date of the Part A exam to submit the project as part of the Part B exam. Failure to submit within the allotted time frame will result in exam failure.
Candidates need to obtain an overall score of 70% and 60% of the total marks in both sections A and B, respectively (i.e. 105 out of 150). Additionally, candidates may retake the Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Exam by paying an extra exam fee if they did not achieve the required score.
What is covered in Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certification Exam?
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certification Examination covers the following topics:
Overview of Six Sigma and the Organization
Under this topic, the measures candidates’ knowledge of value of Six Sigma and Organizational drivers and metrics
The Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Exam gauges candidates' understanding of the Six Sigma approach for minimizing waste and maximizing efficient processes. It also assesses how professionals can make the most of the available tools and resources while still utilizing the established business procedures. Additionally, they comprehend how a rise in performance and a fall in process variance contribute to the reduction of defects and an improvement in earnings, employee morale, and product or service quality.
Six Sigma: Define
The Define phase (DMAIC), which comes first in the Six Sigma improvement process, is essential to the success of Six Sigma. The focus of this phase is on outlining the problem-solving activity, the opportunity for improvement, the project objectives, and the customer’s requirements. Hence, the Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Exam evaluates candidates' understanding of the define phase.
Define measures professionals’ knowledge in the following topics:
- Process elements
- Owners and stakeholders
- Identify Customers & Customer Segmentation
- Collect & Classify Customer data
- Translate Customer requirements
- Project Identification & Planning tools
- Organizational goals and Six Sigma projects
- Project Charter & Project Metrics
- Team stages and DMAIC
- Six Sigma - team roles and responsibilities
Six Sigma: Measure
Baselines are established during the Measure phase in order to evaluate the effectiveness of a particular process. It's challenging to monitor advancements without reliable benchmarks for comparison. Prior to making improvements, the measure phase tries to make sure that people can quantify the issue and comprehend how well the process is already operating. The Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Exam assesses a candidate's insight into the following six sigma:Measure topics
- Process Mapping
- Process inputs and outputs
- Probability and statistics
- Basic probability concepts
- Types of data and measurement scales
- Data collection methods
- Techniques for assuring data accuracy and integrity
- Descriptive statistics
- Graphical methods
- Probability distributions
- Central limit theorem and the sampling distribution of the mean
- Measurement system analysis
Six Sigma: Analyze
Understanding the problem's underlying causes is the main goal of the analysis phase. In order to ensure that improvements are made from the root causes of problems, professionals must first identify and verify those causes. Six Sigma: Analyze topics further and assess their proficiency in the following topics.
- Cause Analysis
- Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA)
- Run Charts
- Multi-Vari studies
- Simple linear correlation and regression
Six Sigma: Improve and Control
Improve and Control is to develop solutions and implement them. Moreover, ensure that the new, improved process is stable and under control. In order to assess professionals’ ability in Improve and Control phase, the exam includes the below topics.
- Process capability and performance
- Process performance vs. specification
- Process capability indices
- Process performance indices
- Short-term vs. long-term capability
- Process capability for attributes data
- Statistical Process Control (SPC)
- Selection and application of Control Charts
- Analysis of control charts
- Control plans, SOPs, Work Instructions
Six Sigma: Project Selection
Project selection is a critical part of the Six Sigma quality improvement process. So the Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Exam judges how well candidates select a project and execute it effectively.
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certificate demonstrates to prospective employers that professionals have undergone rigorous training and the exam to obtain it. This proves professionals’ commitment towards learning six sigma.
Certified professionals are aware of all the steps of an entire business process. This is essential for managing, smoothening, and improving the operational flow continuously. Reviewing and documenting the workflow on a regular basis helps in distinguishing between the value and non-value added tasks. Training teaches individuals to get acquainted with each step within a process and which one appears before or after the other. Waste elimination from the process becomes way more easy.
The training program enables aspirants to identify the prime performance issues. Certified individuals have the potential to offer assistance to an organization’s management. They assist in determining goals for performance measurement, and documenting and improving performance. Individuals undergoing training develop lasting countermeasures for problems after analyzing their causes rigorously. They give special importance to project sponsors and take charge of improvement areas identified by the latter.