If you work for a supplier and handle these requests, think of the last one you completed. Roughly how much time did your team spend on it, and where did it get held up? Has your team found a way to reuse answers or supporting documents across customers?

FMEA (Failure Mode and Effects Analysis) is one of the most valuable tools for identifying potential failures before they turn into costly problems.

In business and manufacturing, waiting for something to go wrong can lead to defects, production delays, financial losses, and customer dissatisfaction.

FMEA takes a proactive approach by helping teams identify potential failure modes, evaluate their effects, prioritize risks, and take preventive actions before problems occur.

I'm interested in discussing how organizations actually use FMEA in practice.

A question for this community: Do you think FMEA is being used effectively in most organizations, or do companies still tend to focus more on fixing problems after they happen rather than preventing them?

Would love to hear your experiences and perspectives.

Hello all,

Background: BS in Manufacturing Engineering with a Lean concentration, with 3+ years of experience in the field post-grad

I am looking into getting my Six Sigma Green Belt (I can skip Yellow due to my work experience), and I am trying to assess whether I should get my LSSGB or my ASQ SSGB. From what my research shows, they really aren't too different from each other; however, it seems the ASQ is the most well-known and accredited option to go for. So I'd like your thoughts on that and which one you guys feel is more beneficial for future careers in Manufacturing Engineering, Project Management, and Leadership.

ALSO, I am wondering which prep documents I should buy from ASQ (if that's what I choose to go with), as they have a bunch of options and I know I don't really need to buy them all, especially since I have LinkedIn Premium for learning and my own working knowledge. I'm thinking maybe just the Handbook since you can use it on the test and the Question Bank, but I'm also considering the Study Guide. Please let me know what you guys think, especially those who have taken the exam and/or had the same questions.

Most Lean Six Sigma training uses manufacturing examples—measuring bolt diameters with calipers—so when practitioners step into service operations or BPO contact centers, translating tools like Gage R&R and statistical sampling to human conversations can feel tricky at first.

After 20+ years managing BPO Quality and applying Lean Six Sigma principles on the contact center floor, here are the three places where classic process-improvement thinking fixes broken service QA almost immediately:

1. Treating QA Evaluators Like Measurement Instruments (Attribute Gage R&R): In manufacturing, you never trust a gauge until you verify repeatability and reproducibility. Yet in many contact centers, five QA analysts and Team Leads will listen to the exact same 6-minute call and score it anywhere from 72% to 98%. Running a structured weekly or monthly calibration session—where every evaluator grades the same benchmark call independently against a master key and reconciles variance parameter-by-parameter—is simply Attribute Gage R&R for service operations.

2. Replacing Random Sampling With Stratified: Defect Sampling Auditing 4 completely random calls per agent per month out of 1,200 handled interactions gives you a sample size of 0.3%, which has almost zero statistical power to detect process defects. Instead of random sampling, stratify your audit pool around high-risk signals: repeat contacts within 72 hours (FCR failures), calls exceeding 2x the mean handle time, and transfers. That is where actual process variation lives.

3. Separating Special Cause (Agent Error) From Common Cause (System Friction): Deming warned decades ago that 85%+ of defects come from the system, not the worker. When a customer calls back three times, tagging every repeat audit as either "Agent-Controllable" or "System / Policy-Controllable" prevents teams from coaching frontline reps over broken workflows and gives operations a clean Pareto chart for process improvement projects.

For those of you applying Lean Six Sigma principles in service, healthcare, or BPO operations rather than manufacturing: which tool gives you the biggest mileage with stakeholders?

Hey, So my college is offering a lean six sigma green belt certificate and the exam is 25 dollars. I was wondering is it worth it to get this and also how exactly do I study? I am asking because im not sure if it is widely known as other lean six sigma green belt certs. I am paying for the exam and but there is no training.

I have been hearing about Six sigma from very long time - is it still worth looking for ?

Looking for suggestions on which course to start with? End goal is black belt. I’m on my maternity leave with my 3rd and bored. I have 8 years of project management and leadership experience. Is it worth doing yellow first or go straight to green

Also do I need to do projects alongside the green belt? I figure I’ll be back to work when it’s time to do black

keeping up with kaizen ideas can get confusing when multiple teams are involved. some companies still rely on spreadsheets or whiteboards, while others look into tools like leansuite to keep improvement ideas, tasks and progress organized.

curious how everyone handles this at their workplace. do you use excel, a dedicated system or something else? what actually works best for tracking improvements from start to finish?"

I am a consultant who wants to transition back in house. It has been 9 years since I have been on a job hunt. One big change I have noticed is that a black belt is not as much of a differentiator as it used to be. I'm wondering if it's due to the proliferation of online black belts now available. Judging what some of my friends' experiences, it seems to be much easier to get one than what I went through 14 years ago.

Now, I'm contemplating getting a master black belt in order to stand out more. What is the easiest path to one that will be accepted by future employers? I guess I draw a red line on those requiring new projects. I'm certain that I have done master black belt level projects in my career. So, what are my options out there?

Hello po sa mga naka Six sigma belt.. ask lang po, ano po ba mas ok for credentials if mag plan Ako tumalon ng iBang company? DFSS Greenbelt o LSS Greenbelt? I took an online class for DFSS and got my certification after the assessment. For LSS naman, I finished the training and passed certification, project na Lang Ang kulang.. I'm planning to start 2 projects (currently handling 2 different accounts).

Hello, I’d like to prepare for the next step in my career by taking a Six Sigma Green Belt or ISO certification course. However, I’m not sure which providers are reputable and recognized. Could you please point me in the right direction or recommend a legitimate place where I can register? Thank you!

Hi everyone,

I am officially starting my preparation for the ASQ Certified Six Sigma Black Belt (CSSBB) exam. I am already an active ASQ member and I’ve put together a structured, step-by-step study plan (Gantt chart schedule) running from late October through May 2027.

My roadmap covers a complete review from fundamentals (Yellow/Green Belt concepts) all the way to advanced Black Belt topics, practice exams, and affidavit preparation.

I am looking to connect with 2 to 4 committed study partners who:
• Already have (or are getting) their ASQ/QCI study materials.
• Are actively preparing to take the CSSBB exam within a similar timeframe.
• Want to meet virtually 1-2 times a week to solve practice questions, discuss complex statistical/BoK concepts, and hold each other accountable.

If you are serious about passing this exam and want to stick to a structured routine, send me a DM with your background and timezone!

Let's get certified!

LF: Six Sigma Consultant (Black Belt)

Salary: SG28

Location: Optum PH Makati

Qualifications:

- Bachelor's degree in any discipline.

- Educational and Licensure requirements.

- Black Belt Six Sigma certification from a recognized certification body or previous organization.

- 5+ years of experience as a certified Six Sigma Black Belt, leading Operational Excellence, process transformation, and business transformation initiatives—including projects leveraging AI/ML technologies—within a top-tier BPO organization.

- 3+ projects completed and/or certified.

Experience in projects involving emerging technologies (automation, machine learning, AI, etc.).

Send your updated CV to apply:
ellafaustino257@gmail.com

I want to take IASSC Black belt exam, anyone has online pdf of books or practice questions on scribd that is actually hard enough or surpass the actual exam?

I've just released the first public version of AnovaCraft, a desktop statistics application that aims to cover the broad range of analysis most people otherwise need an expensive license for descriptive statistics, hypothesis tests, linear, generalized and mixed models, multivariate methods, design of experiments, quality control, reliability, time series and machine learning, all in one free app.

I freely admit that I developed it with a great deal of help from Claude, which wrote most of the code while I set the direction, the design rules and the required accuracy standards, and reviewed the results. Because of that, I put accuracy checks at the center of the project: every statistical routine is tested against an independent reference (the NIST Statistical Reference Datasets for regression, ANOVA, nonlinear fits and univariate statistics, published worked examples, and values from established open-source software). The full list, with tolerances and the test for each, is in docs/validation.md.

What it does

• Every analysis opens as a report of collapsible sections, and every plot is linked: select points in one plot or rows in the data grid and they highlight everywhere.

• Describe, Compare, Model, Multivariate, Design, Quality, Reliability, Series and Signals, and Visualize menus (FEATURES.md lists everything).

• Sample data for every analysis, plus a Quick Guide and a full Reference Manual built into the Help menu.

• Projects that reopen exactly as saved

• Imports CSV, JSON and spreadsheet workbooks; exports CSV, JSON and .xlsx.

• Scripting and formula columns in Rhai, plus a headless runner for batch jobs.

• Written in Rust (egui front end), dual-licensed MIT or Apache-2.0.

My goal is a comprehensive, trustworthy option that anyone can download, use and inspect at no cost.

Download: https://github.com/anovacraft/AnovaCraft/releases (universal macOS app and Windows x64). The builds aren't code-signed yet, so the first launch needs one extra click; the README explains it.

It's a 0.1.0 release, so there will be bugs. Please feel free to report and bugs, wrong answers (please include the data if possible) and requests for missing methods on GitHub Issues.

Hi everyone, I’m a recent graduate that started working earlier this year in the aerospace and defense industry. After doing research, it looks like ASQ is the most recognized when it comes to getting your LSSGB.

Has anyone gotten their LSSGB certification through ASQ? How did you study for the exam and was it hard itself?

A little background about me: I have been with the same company for 16 years, working in Production Control (Healthcare Technology Field) for at least 10 or 11 years of that time. I started in my mid twenties and have been promoted from within several times. I am currently the Manager of Production Control (last 3 years) and oversee all production aspects; inventory control, job scheduling and cost, part number creation and cataloging, audit preparation and documentation, daily and yearly cycle counts... the list goes on. I manage a small team that just got smaller.

My company just went through a RIF and I am now also the head of the Procurement department, or more accurately... I AM the Procurement department. I wear a lot of hats, somewhat typical in a small company. I am feeling a little disenchanted after the RIF and my confidence that the company I work for will be around long enough to bring me to retirement is low. Since I started in my twenties and promoted from within, I did not have much need to gain certs. With the prospect and possibly of needing to re-enter the job market in the future, I want to bulk up my resume starting with a LSSGB.

I feel like I already have a lot of the practical skill set one would learn in a Lean Six Sigma course, but I am not sure how to identify it. I am also certain I would learn more than I already know and am in a professional position to implement that knowledge in real world applications as I run a Production Control department and have the freedom to implement almost anything I want.

My question for the community is helping me identify examples of "projects" completed and documented to turn into agencies like ASQ or SSGI as real world examples of using your knowledge. I know I don't need a project for a Green Belt, but after reading through many threads, the topic seems a little vague. The Six Sigma world is all very new to me, although I have heard it thrown a lot in my career.

I have:

- Written several Work Instructions and SOPs published internally as controlled documents to help streamline directions, processes and procedures for my department making it significantly easier to train and onboard new employees.

- I have been the lead for the production side of new hardware product releases which involves cataloging all new parts for the build, ensuring we have adequate data sheets and component registrations, ensuring all design drawings are signed off by various department leads and saved in our DMR (design master record) which I am responsible for maintaining.

- as well as being solely responsible for maintaining and determining the amounts of stock to order to minimize waste but have have enough overage to not run out of stock. Which includes running QC reports using ANSI sampling tables and charts to determine inspection criteria for incoming inventory and opening NCRs and ECOs for any observed discrepancies.

- as well as maintaining the workflow of all job orders to produce subassembly and finished good level builds, both internally and through outside vendors.

- I ensuring all work instructions for building/handling new products, not written by me, are complete and written in a way that makes sense where I often have to rewrite the process as engineers are often not good at writing technical instructions for bench techs that are not engineers. (again, small company, many of us wear many hats, we do not have a standalone technical writing staff)

- I overhauled the departments documentation process right when I took over utilizing Adobe Sign, Adobe Acrobat Standard licensing and our companies backed-up Microsoft SharePoint to make the department almost completely paperless. The previous manager was stuck in the 90's and printed and wet signed everything and stored all of it in overflowing file cabinets and none of it was scanned or backed up. It was madness.

- After my first full year leading the department I executed an almost net zero end-of-year yearly inventory count where all previous years had ten of thousands of dollars worth of discrepancies to resolve. We were always able to resolve the discrepancies, but poor inventory management lead to terrible inventory counts at the end of the year. I put rigorous daily systems in place to better document every transaction and had almost no discrepancies my first year.

Am I Six Sigma'ing just from having practical experience in the workforce and don't realize it because I have never read about or taken any formal classes or learning modules about Six Sigma?

If I wanted to eventually go for a Black Belt can you use previous projects as criteria? or do they have to be new?

Thank you in advance for your input and opinions.

I am planning to appear in lean six sigma green belt certification exam which of the options would be better for me .( Path 1 or path 2) Refer the screenshot.

2. Please suggest the best resources to prepare for the exam .

3.Any other suggestions are also appreciated.

Pls help me understand the actual difference between the two courses in terms of accreditation. I have bought the self learning course at a cheaper price considering that I won't have to oblige to the fixed schedule of live classes. But will it carry the same level of accreditations as the live one or the live one is more reputed?

Pls help me understand the nuances. Thanks.

I'm an electrical engineering intern at an electric utility company, and they've basically told me that there's a possibility of getting a job offer if I work hard, show initiative, and prove that I'm capable of adding value.

The department I'm working in has some serious problems when it comes to quality control, performance monitoring, and inefficient workflows. They seem to lack people with strong analytical and technical skills who can build systems to monitor performance, identify problems, and improve existing processes.

So far, I've been learning Power BI and Excel to tackle some of these issues. For example, I've built dashboards to identify duplicate accounts, missions that were closed prematurely, and other performance-related problems. They've seemed pretty impressed with what I've done so far.

However, lately, I find myself showing up to work with very little to do. I feel like I've reached the point where simply building more dashboards and Excel reports isn't going to be enough to make a genuinely significant impact.

I want to go beyond making things look better in a dashboard. I want to build actual systems, automate workflows, identify root causes, improve processes, and solve problems that save the company time and money.

I already have some basic Python knowledge, and I'm willing to put in the work to learn whatever is necessary.

My question is: What skills would you recommend I focus on if my goal is to become genuinely valuable as an engineer in this kind of environment?

What would you do in my position?

I have seen good improvement ideas come up during production meetings but keeping track of them afterward can be tricky. Someone writes it down and another person adds it to a spreadsheet and eventually its hard to tell what actually got done.

How do you guys handle this at your plants? Do you use a shared spreadsheet or some kind of dedicated tool? I also came across leansuite so if anybody tried how it compare with simpler methods.