skip navigation links JCCC Home
Future Students Current Students Faculty & Staff Continuing Education Friends & Visitors Tracks
Image of sky, and shadowed tree limbs and leaves with two heads in silhouette and the text Learning Comes First at JCCC.
JCCC Center for Business Offers Lean Six Sigma
Divider

Johnson County Community College
Press Release

College Information and Publications
913-469-8500
Julie Haas, Director, ext. 3120
Peggy Graham, Writer, ext. 3425
Tyler Cundith, Sports Information Director, ext. 3122

5/19/08
Story by Peggy Graham

JCCC Center for Business Offers Lean Six Sigma

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. – When the Center for Business and Technology at Johnson County Community College rolled out its Lean Six Sigma program to begin July 7, the audience was full.

"There is a need in Kansas City for training in Lean Six Sigma,” said Jennifer Winchester, business solutions consultant. “JCCC will be the first public institution to offer the training in this area.”

Lean and Six Sigma are two quality improvement tools in the business world that have been applied separately with the singular goal of improving companies’ bottom lines. Lean focuses on using less of everything from manpower to materials to engineering time, and Six Sigma focuses on quality. The two improvement initiatives are complementary, and it makes sense they have been combined into one.

Simply put, Lean Six Sigma identifies a process, maps the process, looks at problems and applies ways to standardize the relevant process steps through strategies like DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control). According to Winchester, Lean Six Sigma is different from the old Total Quality Management, which focused on people rather than processes. Lean Six Sigma provides a way to improve quality while reducing production time and cost by using standardized data and management principles.

“Lean Six Sigma allows you to make decisions on what you know, not what you think,” Winchester said.

While the name sounds like Greek to people outside the business and engineering sector, the name makes sense to those familiar with product or service outcomes.
“Lean” is self-explanatory as in “lean and mean” or trimming waste. “Six Sigma” takes its names from the number of acceptable deviations (deviation is the lowercase Greek letter “sigma”) in specifications from the means, but now commonly applies to a set of tools used for problem-solving (higher levels of statistics not required).

JCCC will offer three Lean Six Sigma certifications; eight stand-alone Lean Process classes; and Lean Six Sigma: the Human Side classes focusing on interpersonal skills, unique to JCCC.

Lean Six Sigma enlists martial-arts terminology to define various levels of certification. JCCC certificates and potential candidates are:

Lean Six Sigma Champion

  • Provides visible leadership for effective problem solving using the DMAIC strategy
  • Removes barriers encountered by belts and their project teams
  • Guides the selection and monitoring of projects
  • Guides the deployment of Black Belts and Green Belts

Lean Six Sigma Green Belt

  • Serves as a visible leader
  • Leads process improvement projects
  • Works with and supports Black Belts
  • Typically managers/supervisors work on projects within their functional area
  • Encourages a team to properly use Lean Six Sigma tools
  • Acts as a change agent
  • Completes two-three projects per year

Lean Six Sigma Black Belt

  • Serves as a visible leader
  • Demonstrates technical/analytical skills as a team leader 
  • Encourages a team to properly use Lean Six Sigma tools 
  • Produces detailed project plan and delivers project results
  • Communicates project benefits to all involved 
  • Completes three-four projects per year

All three certification courses are blended learning, which combine online and classroom instruction. All Green Belts and Black Belts will be required to complete a real-life project.

Lean Process breakout courses, which focus on individual Lean Tools, are:

  • Lean Overview
  • Value Stream Mapping
  • Standard Work/Cell Design
  • Kaizen/SMED
  • 5 S / Visual Workplace
  • TPM
  • Mistake Proofing
  • KANBAN

All of JCCC Lean instructors are American Society for Quality-certified. Call now to register for classes starting July 7. For more information, contact Winchester at 913-469-8500, ext. 4950, or the Center for Business Web site, www.CenterforBusiness.org. Winchester is facilitating the Lean Six Sigma program at the Center for Business after its initiation at JCCC by Kathy Yeager, recently retired as a business solutions consultant.

JCCC’s Lean Six Sigma program is also unique because of the opportunity to supplement the certification programs with courses in leadership and management (listed at the above Web site). The add-on courses will help Green Belts and Black Belts work better with coworkers and staff to implement projects effectively.

###