Lean Six Sigma for knowledge workers and service processes

Do you work in a non-manufacturing group? If you are applying lean improvement methods but you don’t make goods then you probably supply a service or do “knowledge processing”. Lean thinking in these areas is often called “transactional lean”, “administrative lean”, and “lean for service”.

Non-manufacturing activities where lean methods have been used successfully include the following. You may well work in one of these areas:

• advertising
• entertainment
• financial services
• healthcare and hospitals
• hospitality and hotels
• insurance
• logistics and distribution
• marketing
• online services
• product design
• project management
• property sales
• travel and tourism
• public sector**

**the public sector (“state sector”) is 40% of the USA economy and about 50% of the UK and the EU economy.

Service industries are the largest part of Western economies

This is a table of percent of gross domestic product (GDP)

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Green Belts and Black Belts? Similar to martial arts, Lean Six Sigma uses a coloured belt ranking terminology to define the level and function of Six Sigma practitioners.

But what do the levels mean?

In this guide I'm going to run through the Six Sigma belt levels to explain their role and function and how you can achieve each level.

This should help you when deciding what level of Lean Six Sigma Training different team members require to successfully run Lean Six Sigma projects.

To learn more about Six Sigma including the Belt levels, download our free eBook 'What is Six Sigma?'

Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt

Yellow Belts are team members on Six Sigma projects. They need to understand the key processes and some of the basic Lean Six Sigma tools to work on a project but not to the level of Green Belt.

We run a 2-day Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt course to enable Six Sigma team members to improve their understanding and awareness of Lean Six Sigma tools and processes.

Training team members to Yellow Belt level improves performance and reduces timescales on Six Sigma projects.

Green Belts and Black Belts? Similar to martial arts, Lean Six Sigma uses a coloured belt ranking terminology to define the level and function of Six Sigma practitioners.

But what do the levels mean?

In this guide I'm going to run through the Six Sigma belt levels to explain their role and function and how you can achieve each level.

This should help you when deciding what level of Lean Six Sigma Training different team members require to successfully run Lean Six Sigma projects.

To learn more about Six Sigma including the Belt levels, download our free eBook 'What is Six Sigma?'

Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt

Yellow Belts are team members on Six Sigma projects. They need to understand the key processes and some of the basic Lean Six Sigma tools to work on a project but not to the level of Green Belt.

We run a 2-day Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt course to enable Six Sigma team members to improve their understanding and awareness of Lean Six Sigma tools and processes.

Training team members to Yellow Belt level improves performance and reduces timescales on Six Sigma projects.

Welcome to our PRINCE2® Training Resources page, here you can find all our online resources including our PRINCE2 Quiz, PRINCE2 eBook and PRINCE2 Templates. You can use these resources to revise for your PRINCE2 exam or to start learning about PRINCE2 and all its features.

If you would like to learn more about PRINCE2 Training or take a PRINCE2 exam then come along to our PRINCE2 Foundation Training, PRINCE2 Practitioner Training and PRINCE2 Practitioner Conversion Training in Brighton, Sussex.

Is there something we've missed? Let us know in the comments and we'll do our best to add it as soon as possible.

Health and Safety Training is vitally important for businesses to ensure they operate in a safe environment. Our IOSH Training course is accredited by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health and is designed to minimise risk at work to avoid some of the problems in the following guest post.

How to Prevent Workplace Injury

Some of us work in professions that come with the risk of serious bodily danger.  Construction workers, deep-sea welders, and tandem skydiving instructors, for example, may risk their lives each day simply by showing up for work.  Even those that operate a vehicle (for shipping, transport, or other reasons) may be prone to automobile accidents.  But the majority of people work at jobs that are eminently safer, whether in offices or the service industry, and don’t face these same hazards.  As a result, they might not be prepared for the possible dangers lurking in their otherwise safe work environment.  So if you have an occupation that you think could not possibly bring you harm, you might want to think again.  In order to prevent workplace injury, you first need to recognize that it could happen to you.

Be Aware of Dangers

Of course, it helps to be aware of your surroundings and see the potential threat lurking in items as seemingly innocuous as, say, a keyboard, a clean floor, or a box of paper.  These three items, in fact, represent the major causes of injury in an office environment.  “A keyboard?” you may be asking yourself, “How can a keyboard be harmful?”

Health and Safety Training is vitally important for businesses to ensure they operate in a safe environment. Our IOSH Training course is accredited by the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health and is designed to minimise risk at work to avoid some of the problems in the following guest post.

How to Prevent Workplace Injury

Some of us work in professions that come with the risk of serious bodily danger.  Construction workers, deep-sea welders, and tandem skydiving instructors, for example, may risk their lives each day simply by showing up for work.  Even those that operate a vehicle (for shipping, transport, or other reasons) may be prone to automobile accidents.  But the majority of people work at jobs that are eminently safer, whether in offices or the service industry, and don’t face these same hazards.  As a result, they might not be prepared for the possible dangers lurking in their otherwise safe work environment.  So if you have an occupation that you think could not possibly bring you harm, you might want to think again.  In order to prevent workplace injury, you first need to recognize that it could happen to you.

Be Aware of Dangers

Of course, it helps to be aware of your surroundings and see the potential threat lurking in items as seemingly innocuous as, say, a keyboard, a clean floor, or a box of paper.  These three items, in fact, represent the major causes of injury in an office environment.  “A keyboard?” you may be asking yourself, “How can a keyboard be harmful?”

Little's law forms a part of queuing theory and has deep implications for the 'Improve' aspect of DMAIC within Lean Six Sigma. It calculates the average wait for a customer or item within a transactionary process.

On our Green Belt Six Sigma Training, you'll learn all about Little's law within the wider context of DMAIC and we've discussed using Six Sigma to improve queuing times before.

So what exactly is Little's law, how does it impact upon Six Sigma and why is it so useful and important?

Little's law forms a part of queuing theory and has deep implications for the 'Improve' aspect of DMAIC within Lean Six Sigma. It calculates the average wait for a customer or item within a transactionary process.

On our Green Belt Six Sigma Training, you'll learn all about Little's law within the wider context of DMAIC and we've discussed using Six Sigma to improve queuing times before.

So what exactly is Little's law, how does it impact upon Six Sigma and why is it so useful and important?