Catalyst Consulting - Awareness Workshop Day

15 executives from various industry (transportation, logistics, pharmaceuticals, public service, automotive, manufacturing, IT services) sectors met to learn the basics of Six Sigma at the Catalyst Awareness Workshop run by Jim Stephenson & Martin Brenig-Jones.

The Six Sigma Awareness Workshop is a one day programme, designed for executives or those who need to learn the basics about Six Sigma. The workshop is also the first day of a modular course: attendees can continue for a further 3 days to complete the Accelerated Green Belt Foundation Course (4 days) and then carry on into further modules to Advanced Green Belt, or right through to Black Belt.

To ensure the content of the workshop was pitched at the right level Jim and Martin began with a simple VOC (Voice of the Customer) exercise asking delegates to write on Post-It Notes their expectations for the day and how they would rate themselves in terms of six sigma knowledge).

A brief overview of the history and definitions of Six Sigma was presented by Jim Stephenson, who used plenty of examples from companies such as GE to demonstrate its application. Emphasis was given to the essential ingredients of Six Sigma including leadership commitment, and VOC. Project Scoping is another critical success factor, and selecting those projects with at least a minimum of level of potential impact (whether it be in time, customer satisfaction or money) will help you achieve your aims in manageable bite size chunks.

Martin Brenig-Jones then took us through some more key principles and foundations of Six Sigma, including customer focus; understanding the critical to quality' customer requirements or CTQs and understanding your capability in meeting them; processes; our products and services are outputs from our processes and they must be identified, mapped, measured and managed appropriately; and the roles and responsibilities of the various belts, champions and steering committees.

After lunch Jim looked at the statistical side of Six Sigma and used a very interactive demonstration with the entire group to calculate the process sigma using chocolate M&M's. A thorough walk through of the DMAIC model was then given by Martin who outlined some of the tools and techniques that can be utilised at each stage of the process.

Overall, the day was delivered in a very practical way, drawing on the wealth of knowledge and experience from the Catalyst team. Martin and Jim were able to deliver a large amount of information in a short space of time in a very easy to follow format and using plenty of examples from the group as well as their own experiences. There was also a good amount of time given for networking during the coffee and lunch breaks. A majority of participants were enrolled for the full 4 day foundation course. Certificates were awarded to those who undertook just the Awareness part.

Stratford-Upon-Avon,
The Shakespeare Hotel,
Tuesday 9th May 2006,

To find out more view the Catalyst Events Calendar or email:
info@onesixsigma.com