International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management

Standards for Lean Six Sigma certification

Alessandro Laureani Jiju Antony
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IJPPM
61,1 Standards for Lean Six Sigma
certification
Alessandro Laureani and Jiju Antony
110 DMEM, Strathclyde University, Glasgow, UK

Received May 2011

Accepted May 2011 Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to provide an overview of current Lean Six Sigma certification practices
among different industries and organisations and puts forward a public standard.
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Design/methodology/approach – Survey results, unstructured interviews and secondary

information are used to illustrate the existing variation in certification standards across industries
and organisations.
Findings – The high variation in Lean Six Sigma certification standards makes it very difficult to
judge the actual competence of a certified Belt and to evaluate a Lean Six Sigma program in
organisations. As such, the need for a globally accepted certification standard is identified, similar to
what is already in place for other professions.
Originality/value – This paper has a highly practical content for industry practitioners, with the
intent of suggesting Lean Six Sigma certification standards be used in organisations, drawing on the
best practices from major companies.
Keywords Lean, Six Sigma, Certification, Lean production, Standards
Paper type Research paper

International Journal of Productivity
and Performance Management
Vol. 61 No. 1, 2012
pp. 110-120
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
1741-0401
DOI 10.1108/17410401211188560
Introduction
Lean Six Sigma is a business improvement methodology that aims to maximise
shareholders’ value by improving quality, speed, customer satisfaction, and costs: it
achieves this by merging tools and principles from both Lean and Six Sigma. It has
been widely adopted in manufacturing and service industries and its success in some
famous organisations (e.g. GE, and Motorola) has created a copycat phenomenon with
many organisations across the world willing to replicate the success.
This success has also created a vast consultancy and job market for Lean Six Sigma
professionals that after being trained in Lean Six Sigma in a company, may decide to
change job or start working as independent consultants.
However, Lean Six Sigma has no globally accepted standard for certification: the
proliferation of schools, organisations and training providers that now offer some level
of certification has led to wide variation in assessment criteria, leaving many hiring
managers, recruiters and continuous improvement leaders sceptical of external
certifications. Some certifications currently existing on the market do not require to
prove some technical competence or to show project work: you can indeed pay to
attend a small course and get a certificate, without ever actually doing a project.
As a consequence, many companies have tried to address those concerns building
their own internal certification process, further adding to the confusion.
The objective of this paper is to illustrate different certification processes in various
companies, highlight the commonalities and propose a standard certification process
for Green and Black Belts, that can be widely adopted as industry standard.
 Lean Six Sigma and belts Standards for
Lean and Six Sigma have followed independent paths since the 1980s, when the terms Lean Six Sigma
were first hard coded and defined: first applications of Lean were recorded in the
Michigan plants of Ford in 1913, and those were then developed to mastery in Japan certification
(within the Toyota Production System), while Six Sigma saw the light in the US (within
the Motorola Research Centre):
.
Lean is a process improvement methodology used to deliver products and 111
services better, faster, and at a lower cost. Womack and Jones (1996) defined it as
“a way to specify value, line up value-creating actions in the best sequence,
conduct those activities without interruption whenever someone requests them,
and perform them more and more effectively. In short, lean thinking is lean
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because it provides a way to do more and more with less and less – less human
effort, less human equipment, less time, and less space – while coming closer
and closer to providing customers with exactly what they want.”
.
Six Sigma is a data driven process improvement methodology used to achieve
stable and predictable process results, reducing process variation and defects:
Snee (1999) defined it as “a business strategy that seeks to identify and eliminate
causes of errors or defects or failures in business processes by focusing on
outputs that are critical to customers”.

While both Lean and Six Sigma have been used for many years, they did not get
integrated until the late 1990s and early 2000s (George, 2002, 2003), and today Lean Six
Sigma is recognised as “a business strategy and methodology that increases process
performance resulting in enhanced customer satisfaction and improved bottom line
results” (Snee, 2010).
Lean Six Sigma uses tools from both toolboxes, in order to get the better of the two
methodologies, increasing speed while also increasing accuracy.
The benefits of Lean Six Sigma in the industrial world (both manufacturing and
service) have been widely highlighted in the literature and include (Antony, 2005a,b):
.
Ensuring services/products conform to what the customer needs (“voice of the
customer”).
.
Removing non-value adding steps (waste) in critical business processes.
.
Reducing cost of poor quality.
. Reducing the incidence of defective products/transactions.
.
Shortening the cycle time.
.
Delivering the correct product/service at the right time in the right place.

Examples of real benefits in various sectors are illustrated in Table I from Antony et al.
(2007).
One of the key aspects differentiating Lean Six Sigma from previous quality
initiatives is the organisation and structure of the quality implementation functions. In
quality initiatives prior to Lean Six Sigma, the management of quality was largely
relegated to the production floor and/or, in larger organisations, to some statisticians in
the quality department. Lean Six Sigma, instead, introduce a formal organisational
infrastructure for different quality implementations roles, borrowing from the word of
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61,1

112

Table I.
IJPPM

service organisations
Benefits of Six Sigma in
Service Problem
Healthcare Increase radiology throughput and decrease cost
per radiology in a hospital (Thomerson, 2001)
Poor patient safety due to high medication and
laboratory errors (Buck, 2001)
Overcrowded emergency department (Revere and
Black, 2003)
Banking Reduce customer complaints (Roberts, 2004)
Excessive internal and external call backs plus
unacceptable credit processing time (Rucker, 2000)
High number of flaws in customer-facing processes
(e.g. account opening, payment handling etc.)
(www.helpingmakingithappen.com)
High returned renewal credit cards per month in a
leading bank (Keim, 2001)
Excessive market losses on trading errors, high
costs associated with electronic order corrections
etc. in an investment banking unit (Stusnick, 2005)
Financial High administrative costs
services (www.executiveonline.co.uk)
Unacceptable wire transfer processing time to
customers
Problems in accounts receivables within an
accounting department (www.ssqi.com)
Utility services Poor service delivery (www.executiveonline.co.uk)
High contract complaints resulted in customer
dissatisfaction and high costs
Miscellaneous Poor delivery performance in a logistics company
(Thawani, 2004)
Significant errors in a monthly publication for Wall
Street investors and traders
Outcome Benefits
Significant improvement in radiology throughput 33 per cent increase in radiology throughput
and reduction in cost per radiology procedure
Reduced medication and laboratory errors 22 per cent reduction in cost per radiology
procedure $12 million in savings
Reduced time to transfer a patient from the ER to Improved patient safety significantly $600,000/
an inpatient hospital bed year in profit
Significant reduction in customer complaints and 10.4 per cent increase in customer satisfaction
increase in customer satisfaction 24 per cent decrease in customer complaints
Reduction in both internal and external call backs, Reduced internal call backs by 80 per cent
reduction in credit processing time
Reduced flaws in all customer-facing processes Increased customer satisfaction
Improved process efficiency
Reduced cycle time by over 30 per cent
Significant reduction in the number of returned Defect rate reduced from 13,500 DPMO to 6,000
renewal credit cards DPMO
Reduced trading errors significantly Several millions of dollars in savings
Reduced costs associated with order corrections, Improved employee morale with the banking unit
etc.
Reduction in administration costs Savings generated from this project are
approximately $75,000/year
Reduced wire transfer processing time by 40 per Savings generated from the project are around
cent $700,000/year
Improved cash flow Annual savings are estimated to be well over
$350,000
Improved service delivery Annual savings from the project is of the order of
over $1.5 million
Reduced the number of complaints after six sigma Complaints reduced from 109 to 55 on average
methodology was introduced per year
Reduced the number of delayed deliveries Sigma quality level of the process improved from
2.43 (176,000 DPMO) to 3.94 (7,400 DPMO)
Improved customer satisfaction and increased
market share, resulted in savings of $400,000
(approx.)
Reduction in reporting and accounting errors $1.2 million in estimated savings

Source: Antony et al. (2007)

 martial arts the terminology to define hierarchy and career paths (Snee, 2004; Antony Standards for
et al., 2005c,d; Pande et al., 2000; Harry and Schroeder, 1999; Adams et al., 2003). Lean Six Sigma
Coronado and Antony (2002) showed a first comparison of the various roles according
to Air Academy Associates, a Six Sigma training and consulting group, as shown in certification
Table II.
Over time, as Six Sigma become more successful and its application more spread,
with the proliferation of consultancy and training companies, new terms such as 113
“Yellow Belt” and “White Belt” got coined: “The Yellow Belt role was simply
created to fill a need for employers who wanted to educate their employees in the
Six Sigma implementation strategy that their organisation has chosen, without
actually allowing them to be a physical part of it. It was a low-cost, basic overview
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for the common employee to understand what exactly the company was trying to
achieve.” (Setter, 2010). Some companies went further with the introduction of
“White Belts” (Harry and Crawford, 2005), a supposedly basic introduction of what
Six Sigma is.
All these terms (“Black Belt”, “Green Belt”, “Master Black Belt”, “Yellow Belt” and
“White Belt”) are in industry being used somehow indiscriminately, without an
understanding of the skills and responsibilities, as the training and requirements are
mostly tailored to different industries and/or companies.
In the literature commonly accepted definitions are:
.
White Belt: Harry and Crawford (2004) introduced in the literature the concept of
white belt: it requires 40 hours training and it has a much narrower focus than
the black belt, as it works within a specific work cell, instead than on

Green belts Black belts Champions

Profile Technical background Technical degree Senior manager

Respected by peers Respected by peers and Respected leader and mentor
management of business issues
Proficiency in basic and Master of basic and Strong proponent of six sigma
advanced tools advanced tools who asks the right questions
Role Leads important process Leads strategic, high impact Provides resources and strong
improvement teams process improvement leadership for projects
projects Inspires a shared vision
Leads, trains and coaches on Change agent Establishes plan and creates
tools and analysis Teaches and mentors cross- infrastructure
Assists black belts functional team members Develops metrics
Typically part-time on a Full-time project leader Converts gain into £
project Cover gains into £
Training Two three-day sessions with Four one-week sessions with One week champion training
one month in-between to three weeks in-between to Six sigma develop and
apply apply implementation plan
Project review in second Project review in sessions
session two, three and four
Numbers One per 20 employees (5 per One per 50 to 100 employees One per business group or Table II.
cent) (1-2 per cent) major manufacturing site Comparison of role,
profile and training in Six
Sources: Coronado and Antony (2002); Air Academy Associates (1998) Sigma Belt system
 IJPPM cross-functional projects. A white belt can complete up to 12 projects a year, with
61,1 the potential financial return of $25k from each project;
.
Yellow Belt: similar to the White Belt described from Harry and Crawford (2004),
the Yellow Belt is often used in industry to indicate employees that, take up roles
in Six Sigma projects, along their other job responsibilities.
.
Green Belts: are employees that, after receiving approximately 80 hours training,
114 take up roles in Six Sigma projects, along their other job responsibilities.
According to Harry and Crawford (2005) they would use many of the same tools
as Black Belts, but focus on projects within a single division or location.
.
Black Belts: individuals who have had at least 160 hours of Six Sigma training
and who have mastered relatively sophisticated tools and statistical techniques.
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Black Belts typically work on large projects, that might take few months to
complete, with savings up to $300k (Harry and Crawford, 2005) (;
.
Master Black Belts: experienced Black Belts, that have exceeded at project
execution, and have practiced for a few years, may move forward to the role of
Master Black Belt: a full time practitioner in Six Sigma tool and a mentor to
successful Green and Black Belts (Ingle and Roe, 2001)

Often, however, the use of those Lean Six Sigma terms in business and consultancy is
not rooted in a proper definition of the skills and responsibilities of those roles (Hoerl,
2001).

Overview of current certification practices

While in many other professional fields, certification is obtained through a standard set
of education, testing and experience requirements, usually administered from a central
authority, in the Lean Six Sigma field the specific requirements for certification vary
and there is not a central authority.
Accordingly to a survey conducted from the professional magazine iSixSigma
(Marx, 2008), that saw 1,160 respondents among Lean Six Sigma professionals
registered with iSixSigma, the vast majority of them are certified and more than half of
the certified received their certification from the company they were working at the
time (Figure 1).
Six Sigma Certification Bodies like American Society for Quality, International
Quality Federation (n.d.) and the British Quality Foundation (n.d.) accounted for less
than 15 per cent of overall certifications, showing the vast majority of professionals
rely on their company internal certification process.
The criteria to achieve the in-house certification vary as well, with 84 per cent of
Black Belts saying their company requires an exam for certification, together with two
projects completed, with a minimum saving of $181,563 per project on average.
Larger companies are much more likely to have their internal certification process,
in comparison to smaller companies (77 per cent of companies with revenue of $1 billion
or more have one vs 37 per cent of companies with revenue of less than $50 million).
Certification requirements at Motorola, DuPont and Microsoft illustrate the
difference in requirements at major companies (Marx, 2008):
.
Exam: while Motorola and Microsoft require an exam for certification, DuPont
does not.
 Standards for
Lean Six Sigma
certification

115

Figure 1.
Percentage of certified
professionals and source
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of certification, Hathaway,
B. (2010)

.
Financial savings: while Motorola and DuPont have specific targets for financial
savings at Green/Yellow/Black Belt, Motorola has projects specific targets.
.
Training required: the number of days of training for the various level of
certifications vary considerable across companies.

Another example is that of GE, whose Six Sigma program and roles have been
exhaustively explained in Hoerl (2001): Black Belts in GE are certified after completing
a certain number of financially successful projects, typically in the range 5-15.
Accordingly to Ingle and Roe (2001), GE has a more structured approach to training
Black Belts than does Motorola: GE candidates are told what projects to work on, the
training is shorter, and hence more intensive. Motorola’s training, instead, is more
flexible, potentially leading to a greater breadth of expertise.

Implications for Lean Six Sigma Companies

The main consequences of this variety in certification practices are:
.
Difficulty in comparing the level of preparation of Lean Six Sigma professionals
(is a Black Belt certified from Company A the same of a Black Belt certified from
Company B?), hence hiring decisions are made more difficult.
.
Difficulty in comparing effectiveness of Training and Consultancy partners.
.
The need to build and maintain internal certification process to close the gap due
to the lack of standard certification.

A new Lean Six Sigma Certification Standard

Having reviewed practices in Companies that have answered the iSixSigma survey, the
body of knowledge of American Society for Quality (ASQ, 2007), International Quality
Federation (IQF) and the British Quality Foundation (BQF), the proposed standard
from the Center of Excellence led from Ohio State University – Fisher College of
Business (2010), and taken into consideration the effort of the International Academy
for Quality (IAQ) we would like to suggest a certification standard composed of three
main constituent parts:
 IJPPM (1) Body of Knowledge (including Exam).
61,1 (2) Body of Experience (including evidence of projects’ results).
(3) Maintaining of certification and re-certification.

Although the principles are the same, the requirements for Black Belts and Green Belts
are slightly different, to reflect the difference in experience and mastery of tools.
116
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Certification Standard
(1) Body of knowledge: suggestion is to use the American Society for Quality (ASQ)
Body of Knowledge, which is already widely adopted and known on the market,
and their exam to test mastery of the theory and tools.
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(2) Body of experience: professionals need to show mastery in implementing actual

process improvement:
.
Leadership role in a minimum of two projects.
.
Generate either one of the following:
– Commercial Organisation: generate economic benefits of at least $100,000
per project
– Not-for-profit Organisation: if the project takes place in an organisation
with non-financial metrics, the improvement in the metrics has to be at
least 30 per cent and it needs to be supported with data and facts.
.
An executive affidavit from the Organisation where the projects took place
would be necessary to demonstrate either of the above.
(3) Maintain certification: as Lean Six Sigma skills evolve over time, a Continuing
Certification Requirements program should be put in place, modelled from the
one of the Project Management Institute (PMI) for Project Management
professionals: certified Black Belts need to participate in professional
development activities to earn professional development units to maintain
their certification. A specific amount of units should be required per three-year
certification cycle.

Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Certification Standard

(1) Body of knowledge: suggestion is to use the American Society for Quality (ASQ)
Body of Knowledge, which is already widely adopted and known on the market,
and their exam to test mastery of the theory and tools.
(2) Body of experience: professionals need to show mastery in implementing actual
process improvement:
.
Leadership role in a minimum of one project.
.
Generate either one of the following:
– Commercial Organisation: generate economic benefits of at least $25,000
per project
– Not-for-profit Organisation: if the project takes place in an organisation
with non-financial metrics, the improvement in the metrics has to be at
least 10 per cent and it needs to be supported with data and facts.
 A management affidavit from the Organisation where the projects took place Standards for
would be necessary to demonstrate either of the above. Lean Six Sigma
(3) Re-certification: as Lean Six Sigma skills evolve over time, re-certification for certification
Green Belt should take place every five years at least.

The suggested certification provides a more reliable process to measure the capabilities
of Black and Green Belts and their ability to effectively lead a process improvement 117
effort.

Practical implications and limitations

It is arguable that the certification standards may be slightly different based on the
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industry sector: after all, the tools used in the Manufacturing field can be different from
the ones used in Service. However, we believe the actual set of tools and theories in the
background of Lean Six Sigma, which ultimately stems from the Quality Management
masters like Deming (1982) and Juran (1998), are the same across industries, hence a
common Body of Knowledge. The differences in application of the principles should be
reflected in the Body of Experience and the type of projects used for certification.
Industry needs a certification that (Hathaway, 2010):
.
is supported by an independent body;
.
is inclusive of both theory and practice;
. is testable and transferable among industries and geographies;
.
is enforced by academics, industry and consultancies;

and we hope the standard suggested in this paper can be utilised to fill the current void.

Key findings
Some of the key findings were:
.
A lack of standard certification is putting at stake the credibility of Six Sigma in
industry.
.
the proliferation of new certifications and trainings (e.g. white belts, blue belts)
“is mostly designed to expand the product line of training providers” (Setter,
2010).
.
the Body of Knowledge is founded on the theories and tools developed in decades
of progress in the field of Quality Management and, as such, is independent from
the industry sector.
.
the Body of Experience, constituted of evidence of projects work in order to
obtain certification, should instead reflect the differences in use of tools among
industries, giving the candidate the opportunity to highlight the mastery of the
tools achieved on the job.
.
As in any other discipline, the evolution of the field, and the emphasis on
application of the tools is such that only with constant practice can a certified
practitioner can retain mastery of the tools: as a result, it is advisable to require
practitioners to either re-certify or being involved in professional development
activities to retain certification.
 IJPPM Conclusion
61,1 It is almost ironic that the field of Lean Six Sigma, where standardisation is a pillar, is
lacking a standard for certification: this generates confusion, a parallel industry for
certification practices and lack of trust and confidence on the professionals in the field.
Throughout the history of Six Sigma first, and now Lean Six Sigma, no one has
stepped forward to take the responsibility of setting a standard: currently, there is not a
118 recognised international governing body for Lean Six Sigma, as there is in many other
professions (e.g. accountancy, project management, etc . . .).
Large corporations created their own internal structure to foster the methodology
internally, but have always had little interest in sharing it with other companies,
particularly potential competitors; at the same time, a myriad of trainers and
consultants have come up to make a profit instilling the methodology to their clients.
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We believe that, after 25 years of practicing Six Sigma, it is now the time to
establish a rigorous standard for training and certification: the objective of this paper
has been to put forward a suggestion to fill this void, advancing a public standard, that
assembles the best components of currently different practices and takes into account
the development of both theory and practice.
We hope that making it available for public consumption would drive adoption
from companies, that can start applying it internally, and bring uniformity to the
certification process.
With time, once a critical mass has been achieved, it is possible to envisage the
setting up of a governing body to administer and maintain it.

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About the authors

Alessandro Laureani is a statistician, qualified Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belt, Project
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Management Professional Certified, with a strong quantitative background and experience in

managing projects in the service industry across multiple countries, focusing on improvements
in processes and increasing quality. He has trained over 100 people as Lean Six Sigma Green
Belts and Yellow Belts and he is also researching leadership effects on Lean Six Sigma
deployment in organizations, as part of his PHD at Strathclyde University.
Professor Jiju Antony, Director of the Centre for Research in Six Sigma and Process
Improvement (CRISSPE) and Director of Knowledge Exchange within Strathclyde Institute for
Operations Management in his 12-year research career, has published more than 175 refereed
papers and five textbooks in the area of reliability engineering, design of experiments, Taguchi
methods, Six Sigma, total quality management and statistical process control. He has
successfully launched the First International Journal of Six Sigma and Competitive Advantage in
August 2004 and has now launched the International Journal of Lean Six Sigma, launched in
April 2010 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Professor Antony has been invited several
times as a keynote speaker to national conferences on Six Sigma in China, South Africa, The
Netherlands, India, Greece, New Zealand, South Africa and Poland. Professor Antony has also
chaired the First, Second and Third International Conferences on Six Sigma and First and
Second European Research Conferences on Continuous Improvement and Lean Six Sigma. The
recent work of Professor Antony includes collaborations with organisations such as Thales
Optronics Ltd, Scottish Power, Rolls-Royce, Tata Motors, Bosch, Nokia, GE Domestic
Appliances, Scottish Widow, 3M, Land Rover, GE Power Systems, NHS Ayr and Arran, Kwit Fit
Financial Services, Clydesdale Bank etc in the development of Six Sigma, Lean and Continuous
Improvement programmes within these organisations. He is currently chairing the Six Sigma
Cluster for local companies in Scotland and is a Six Sigma certified Black Belt from the American
Society for Quality (ASQ). He is on the Editorial Board of over eight international journals and a
regular reviewer of five leading international journals in quality, operations and production
management. He has trained over 800 people in the last five years as certified Lean Six Sigma
Green Belts and Yellow Belts. Jiju Antony is the corresponding author and can be contacted at:
jiju.antony@strath.ac.uk

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