Comments on: “Certifications” – Buying Credibility?

By: Mike Darrish

Mike Darrish — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 00:47:16 +0000

Regarding the comment about DFSS and hospitals, I have to say that healthcare needs DFSS and badly. DFSS is used when the existing process doesn’t and cannot meet customer requirements or when a proces/product/service doesn’t exist. I’ve worked in a couple of process improvement projects in hospitals. They need help to *** dramatically *** improve their quality, especially now that Medicare and insurance companies are balking at paying for the so called “never” events – like amputating the wrong limb, spreading staph infections through inadequate processes, or having patients die while waiting to go back into surgery to stop bleeding that shouldn’t be happening in the first place. Smart healthcare CEOs will get religion and be able to attract the best physicians, nurses and allied healthcare workers, while their insurance rates and other costs will drop. DMAIC just may not be good enough to fix processes that were never designed with the patient in mind in the first place.

By: Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog » Management Improvement Carnival #39

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 17:36:22 +0000

[...] “Certifications” – Buying Credibility? by Mark Rosenthal – “if you are looking for your own professional development, and look at a program for what it is: An academic education, and possibly an opportunity to establish professional network, then go for it. Just don’t go in believing that ‘being certified’ means a whole lot else.” [...]

By: Mark Graban

Mark Graban — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 16:17:11 +0000

One way to look at this — if a company is asking for a laundry list of certifications for Lean people, maybe they don’t really understand Lean and you should stay away?

I saw a posting for a hospital that wanted a Lean Black Belt who had DFSS (Design for Six Sigma) experience.

What a hospital could possibly want with DFSS, I have no idea.

By: Jim Fernandez

Jim Fernandez — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:10:27 +0000

Very good points here.

This article makes me wonder, then what are Six Sigma “Black Belts”? I’m guessing that because there is so much math and statistics involved in Six Sigma, you could therefore certify that a person “understands” all the graphs and numbers.

Also, with this article, you have helped me feel a little better about my job. I came to work at my newest job 2 years ago. I was hired to take care of the repair of customer returns. After 1 year on the job I was asked to be the Lean Manager. The first Lean Manager the compnay has ever had. My response was, what does the word “Lean” mean???

By: Gabriela

Gabriela — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:47:14 +0000

You probably know from other forums that I agree with you on this topic. There is a lot of pretense in this business. In my case, the more I learn and practice lean, the more I realize how much more I have to learn.
The way I see it, every college/university should offer courses in lean manufacturing as part of the curriculum.
My son graduated last year with a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering. you’d think he had some options for lean courses. Wrong! All he learned about lean manufacturing was from my books. Yet, his project involved improvements on a GM assembly line. There is a disconnect between our educational system and the workplace. I know there are a couple of colleges that offer lean courses but that is not enough.
Then, we would not need certifications but practicing what we learned in school, same like any other discipline of study. During the work terms, the theory will be applied in practice and, at least, they are up to a good start.
What are your thoughts on that?

By: Pete Abilla

Pete Abilla — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 06:04:35 +0000

You’re completely right: Toyota doesn’t certify anybody, but the training is frequent and the focus at Toyota isn’t on results — but on the learning process and the progress. This fact is really odd to those outside Toyota, but this fact is also what allows Toyota to innovate and take risks because the emphasis is on the learning process and, because of Respect for the Human, people’s jobs are secure.