Lean Six Sigma Green Belt

Study Guide

Name: ____________________________

Print this guide double sided and bind it for a booklet feel.

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Letter from the President

First, let me congratulate you for pursing your Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certification and welcome to the American

Association for Lean Six Sigma Certification (AALSSC). Obtaining a Lean Six Sigma certification is one of the most

rewarding and valuable professional accomplishments. You will feel an increase in self-confidence, more capable when

leading people and problem solving abilities well above your peers. The professional opportunities for a Lean Six Sigma

Green Belt are vast and across all industries. This is an exciting time for Lean Six Sigma professionals and I welcome you

to the community.

The amount of knowledge required for an AALSSC certification is extensive, but not overwhelming. You can do it! The

core tenants of AALSSC is the certifications must be relevant and attainable. By focusing on relevance some areas of

study deemed not relevant enough are removed – making the exam more attainable. As a certified Lean Six Sigma Green

Belt you will be expected to effectively facilitate teams, be a process improvement specialist, and a problem solving

expert. The exam tests your knowledge, skills and abilities across these focus areas.

This is your study guide, treat it as such. Write your name on it, complete it using your words and follow the concepts

outlined. By writing you will retain the information and make this study guide a useful part of your reference library. Plus,

this study guide can be used when taking an AALSSC Green Belt certification exam.

Good luck and welcome to AALSSC – your road to success.

Mr. Erik Christensen

AALSSC President

Erik Christensen

Table of Contents

Overview

Continuous Improvement

Lean Six Sigma

Certifications

Fundamentals every Green Belt must know

Quality and Value

Gemba and Kaizen

Change management and metrics

Primary impact areas of Green Belts

Team Facilitation

Stages of team development

Facilitation and decision making tools

Lean Six Sigma events and team members

Lean

Principles of Lean

8 Wastes of Lean

Six Sigma

DMAIC and Project charter

Problem solving

Problem solving tools

Root Cause Analysis

Process Improvement

See the process

Improve the process - Lean Six Sigma countermeasures

Sustain improvements - audits

Continuous Improvement

Lean Six Sigma is the combining of two methodologies – Lean and Six Sigma; which fall under a larger category of

“Continuous Improvement”.

What is continuous improvement and what other methodologies fall under it? From which methodology did Lean and Six

Sigma stem from?

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Lean and Six Sigma

Concept: Lean Six Sigma combines the process improvement benefits of Lean with the statistical process control benefits

of Six Sigma. It takes advantage of the "value-­added" focus of Lean while maintaining statistical tools of Six Sigma.

What other definitions of Lean Six Sigma did you find? Which companies first started Lean and Six Sigma and when?

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Certifications

Concept: Identify individual ability to implement Lean Six Sigma - the most relevant, useful, and valuable Lean Six

Sigma certifications are Green, Black and Master Black. All other certifications have diminished return on investment and

therefore not offered by AALSSC.

MBB

Black

Belt

Green

Belt

Experienced Black Belt with ability to lead

organization through an entire transformation

Leading strategic level projects/kaizen events and

facilitating strategic planning sessions

Leading tactical level projects/kaizen events at the

front line

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Quality and Value

Concepts:

Value: What customers are willing to pay for.

Quality: Meeting or exceeding customer expectations.

How are quality and customer satisfaction related? Who defines quality? Research all you can on quality and value.

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Gemba and Kaizen

Gemba: The place of actual work.

Kaizen: Continuous Betterment (Improvement).

What is the deeper meaning behind both of these concepts? What actions are managers expected to take based on these

concepts? How do these concepts shape organizational culture?

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Change Management

Concept: Improving processes requires people to change how or what they do, any change in work requires some level of

change management.

Q x A = I : The quality of the solution multiplied by the acceptance of the people who have to implement the solution

equals the impact of that solution.

How does this formula apply to process improvement? Have you ever experienced a time when a good solution was not

fully implement due to resistance by people? What other terms are used to describe the challenge of having people be part

of the solution, rather than part of the resistance?

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Metrics

Concept: There is a need to measure improvements in order to claim an improvement.

Metrics - Quantifiable measures that can assess the performance of a process.

Purpose of a metric is to drive behavior.

Core four metrics are: Cost, quality, delivery, and safety

What are the types of metrics? How can a green belt use metrics to accomplish goals? What happened if we sacrifice one

metric for another? What dysfunctional behaviors have you seen based on how the individual was being measured, graded

or promoted? How can metrics be used in continuous improvement?

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Areas of Impact

Concept: Green belts impact is felt the strongest across four main areas of the organization.

1) Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ) – all the cost related to not producing to customer requirements (across core four

metrics).

In your experiences what impacts (costs) have you seen from errors, mistakes or defects? What are the obvious costs and

hidden costs?

2) Opportunity losses – By spending resources to respond to and fix defects the company is not exploring new ways to

satisfy the customer.

Research and explain the Kano Model? What are the key words used in the Kano model?

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Areas of Impact (cont)

3) Employee Morale - Lean Six Sigma is founded on the core concept of respect for people.

How is employee morale effected by work processes? What impact does morale have on operations? What experiences

have you had with morale effecting quality?

4) Workplace safety - Safe work environment shows respect for employees and what they contribute.

Physical work areas and processes are intertwined.

How can workplace hazards effect quality and business operations? What experiences have you had with workplace

safety?

My notes:

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Team Facilitation

Concept: Facilitators contribute structure and process to interactions so groups are able to function effectively and make

high quality decisions.

To be an effective facilitator one must begin by believing the comments below:

People are intelligent, capable and want to do the right thing

Groups can make better decisions than any one person can make alone

Everyone’s opinion is of equal value; regardless of rank or position

People are more committed to the ideas and plans that they have helped to create

How do facilitators help with change management? What is the primary focus of facilitators as opposed to other team

members? Research facilitation and write all the key points below.

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Stages of team development

Concept: Groups of people go through stages as they transform into a team.

What are the stages of team development? Describe how team members act during each stage. Describe facilitator

strategies during each stage.

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Facilitator tools

Concept: Facilitators use various tools and strategies to help team’s achieve goals.

Facilitators use different tools depending on the situation. Tools include open-ended questions, close-ended

questions, probing questions, repeating back, summarizing, force field analysis, and active listening.

Research and describe the common facilitator tools listed above.

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Group Decision making tools

Concept: Facilitators and teams need decision making tools because of the complexity or difficulty of decision to be

made.

Phase I – Generate list of possible ideas or solutions.

Tool: Brainstorming – fast paced idea generation.

What are the various methods of brainstorming? What are the rules of brainstorming?

Tool: Nominal Group Technique – focused idea generation.

What is the common method for NGT? Explain what it is and how to use it below.

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Group Decision Making Tools (cont)

Phase II – Organize and narrow the ideas or solutions.

Tool: Affinity Diagram – categorize like ideas.

Describe affinity diagram and when it is normally accomplished.

Tool: N/3 – reduce the total number of ideas to make it more manageable.

Describe N/3 and when it is normally used.

My notes:

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Group Decision Making Tools (cont)

Phase II (cont) – Organize and narrow the ideas or solutions.

Tool: Advocate – allowing an individual to present a position .

When it is normally accomplished.

Tool: Multi-voting – identify popular ideas and ideas to be removed from consideration.

Describe multi-voting and when it is normally used.

My notes:

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Group Decision Making tools (cont)

Phase III – Evaluate and decide on way forward.

Tool: Criteria Rating – rank ideas based on criteria to help with selection.

Describe when criteria ranking is normally used and how to use it.

Tool: Straw Poll – informal vote.

Describe how to conduct a straw poll and when it is normally used.

My notes:

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Group Decision Making tools (cont)

Tool: Consensus voting – determine if all team members either agree or can live with decision.

Describe how to use consensus voting.

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Lean Six Sigma Events and Project Team Members

Concept: Bring people together to form teams and accomplish a specific objective.

Point Kaizen – 1-2 day events with team leaders span of control.

Kaizen Blitz – 4-5 day event that goes across multiple function areas.

Project – 3-6 month event focused on multiple business areas.

What are some other names for lean six sigma events? What experiences have you had with events?

Champion: Person with organizational authority

Process Owner: Person with authority and accountability for the process

Facilitator: Manage meeting(s) and enables change

Team Leader: Leads team thru process – normally a SME who is accountable for specific RIE results

Team members: cross functional experts brought together to solve a specific problem

What are the responsibilities of each team member? Who selects team members? Where is the list of team members

documented?

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Lean

Lean is a systematic approach to identify waste, focus activities on eliminating it, and maximize (or make

available) resources to satisfy other requirements.

Uses the plan, do, check, act cycle for continuous improvement (PDCA).

Research and describe the how the word “Lean” was developed, what Lean is truly describing and the PDCA

cycle.

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Principles of Lean

1. Define value from the standpoint of the end customer.

2. Map the value stream.

3. Create flow by making the steps occur in tight sequence.

4. Let the customers pull value from the process by keeping pace with the rate of customer demand.

5. Continuously improve and strive for the “Ideal” process.

Further research and understand the principles of Lean.

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8 Wastes of Lean

Understand value adding vs. non-value adding steps in a process.

Transportation: Movement of material, information, people or equipment that does not add value

Inventory: More information, projects, material on hand than is needed right now

Motion: Movements of people that does not add value

Waiting: Idle time created when material, information, people, or equipment is not ready

Over-Production: Generating more than is needed right now

Over-Processing: Effort that creates no value from the customer viewpoint

Defects: Work that contains errors, re-work, mistakes or lacks something necessary

Under-Utilization: Any failure to use the time and talents of people

Research and gain a complete understanding of the 8 wastes.

My notes:

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Six Sigma

Sigma σ is a statistical unit of measure which reflects process capability.

Follows DMAIC cycle for project execution.

Focuses efforts following the transfer function Y=f(x).

Who first developed six sigma as an operating philosophy? What exactly is six sigma? What exactly is DMAIC? What

exactly is the transfer function and why does it matter? Research and gain a complete understanding of six sigma.

My notes:

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Six Sigma (cont)

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Project or Event Documentation

Concept: When executing a Lean Six Sigma event there is a need for documentation

Charter: Official document that authorizes project/kaizen event to move forward.

A3: Single page document organized to emphasis cause/effect, uses data for objectivity, forces brevity and

shows alignment between effort and objective.

Research about charters and charter formats. Research about A3 thinking and various types of A3s.

My notes:

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Problem Solving tools

Concept: When attempting to solve a problem there are proven tools and methods which increase chance of

success.

Tool: Problem Statement - a clear, concise statement of what’s wrong.

Research and practice writing problems statements. What must a problem statement include? What cannot be

included in a problem statement?

Tool: SIPOC – provides project scope.

Research and practice developing SIPOCs.

My notes:

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Problem Solving tools (cont)

Tool: SMART goal setting – used a filter to goals are valid.

Research and practice analyzing goals using SMART criteria.

Tool: SWOT analysis – internal and external analysis of a team or organization.

Research and practice completing a SWOT analysis.

My notes:

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Root cause analysis

Concept: To prevent problem reoccurrence solutions must address the root of the problem.

Two types: statistical (analyzing data) and non-statistical (using the knowledge and wisdom of people).

Tool: Cause and Effect Diagram - provide structure to brainstorming.

Research and practice completing a cause and effect diagram (fishbone diagram).

My notes:

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Root cause analysis (cont)

Tool: Run Chart - Monitor the behavior of a variable over time.

Research and practice run chart development.

Tool: Pareto Chart – find the few causes that have the greatest impact (aka the 80/20 principle).

Research and practice developing a Pareto chart.

My notes:

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Root cause analysis (cont)

Tool: Histogram – visual display of how often something happens.

Research and practice developing a Histogram.

Tool: 5 Whys analysis – Ask “why did that occur” five times and you will find the root cause.

Research and developed complete understanding of 5 whys analysis and its pitfalls.

My notes:

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Root cause analysis (cont)

Tool: Scatter Diagram – determines relationship between two variables.

Research and practice developing scatter diagram.

My notes:

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Risk Analysis

Concept: plan for problems that have not yet occurred.

Tool: Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) – quantifiably measure and compare risk, then determine

what course of action to take for each.

Research and practice developing a FMEA to include calculating risk priority number (RPN).

Develop FMEA below

My notes:

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See and analyze the process

Concept: Teams must be able to see and analyze a process before they can improve it.

Tool: Process walk – see first-hand how processes are being accomplished.

Research and practice doing a process walk. Understand the data that is expected to be gathered. What are some

best practices when doing a process walk?

Tool: Value stream map – visual display of all the actions taken to bring a product or service to the customer.

Three types: Current state, Ideal state and future state.

Research and describe the three types of value stream maps, their properties, common VSM symbols and

method for completion. Practice completing one on your own.

My notes:

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See and analyze the process (cont)

Tool: Spaghetti diagram – visual display of motion or transportation waste.

Research and practice developing a spaghetti diagram.

Practice Value Steam Mapping and Spaghetti Diagram below

My notes:

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See and analyze the process (cont)

Tool: Waste analysis – find the waste in the process.

Tool: Timing the value stream – capture real data for how long operations take.

Lead Time – total time to transform input to output

Cycle Time – a measure of throughput

Touch Time – time spend actually working on item

Takt Time: Determines rate of production

Work in Process (WIP) – in-process inventory (no longer raw material, not finished goods)

Research and fully define and understand each time listed and how to calculate. Fully comprehend the problems related to

WIP.

Practice calculating takt time

My notes:

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Develop improvement plan

Concept: To make the change from current state to future state value stream maps people have to take action. These

actions are prioritized and documented on an action plan.

Tools: PICK chart – used to prioritize the action plan.

Research PICK charts and decision matrix for action plan development. Research best practices and formats of actions

plans. Be able to identify items that must be in an action plan and items that cannot be in an action plan.

Tool: Action Plan – identify actions necessary to accomplish goal.

Research and develop an understanding of action plans to include what must be included in a action plan and what cannot

be included. Be able to identify various action plan formats.

My notes:

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Lean Six Sigma tools

Concept: Use proven best practices for continuous improvement.

Tool: Standard Work - agreed upon set of work procedures and best practices that document the interaction of people,

materials and machines.

Inconsistent process = inconsistent results; Consistent process = expected results.

Research and develop a deep understanding of standard work.

My notes:

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Lean Six Sigma tools (cont.)

Tool: 5S – organize the physical work place for process excellence.

Sort, straighten shine, standardize, sustain.

Research and learn about 5S, detailed definitions for each phase and actions taken during each phase of a 5S event. Know

about red tags and red square areas. Understand the concept of point of use (POU) and supermarkets.

My notes:

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Lean Six Sigma tools (cont.)

Tool: Visual Management – make the workplace visual using colors, shapes, lines, etc.

Two components: Visual display and visual control.

Research all aspects of visual management and be able to distinguish between display and control.

My notes:

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Lean Six Sigma tools (cont.)

Tool: Mistake Proofing (Poke-Yoke) – use a 100% inspection device to automatically detect errors so they are passed to

the next stage of the operation.

Research and understand Poke-Yoke devices, the method for implementing and expected benefits.

My notes:

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Lean Six Sigma tools (cont.)

Tool: Quick changeover (SMED) – reduce the amount of time a machine is off when making a change. Reduces urge to

run large batches and provides a competitive advantage.

Research and understand why quick changeover is commonly called SMED, understand the two types of steps performed

in a changeover sequence, and the expected benefits.

My notes:

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Lean Six Sigma tools (cont.)

Tool: Heijunka – level the work to reduce system strain and enable “pull” production.

Research Heijunka and load leveling methods.

Tool: cellular design – put people, materials and information in the same place.

Researched cellular designs and methods for creation.

My notes:

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Sustainment

Concept: Prevent regression and commit to continuous improvement.

Tool: Audits - To sustain improvements leadership and audits are necessary.

What specific measures can be included for sustainment controls? What if leadership appears not to focus on sustainment?

My notes:

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Sustainment (cont.)

Tool: Replication: repeat success for maximum impact across organization.

How can we replicate success given the Q x A = I? What challenges might we face? Can the parking lot be a source of

continuous improvement ideas? Research and understand the RACI matrix for communications?

My notes:

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My notes:

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The American Association for Lean Six Sigma Certification

Your road to success!

AALSSC

112 Water St., Suite 101

Henderson, NV 89015