Like many companies in the world, my company has a focus on the Continuous Improvement Process (CIP) and we have multiple "belt" programs. The "belt" program parallels that of karate to some degree. We have Yellow Belts, Green Belts, Black Belts, and Master Black Belts. In this blog post, I'll talk a little bit about my company's CIP program and where I fit in so far, but I won't get into much detail on any of the tools.

Our Yellow Belt program gets you introduced to the program and gives you a taste of what six-sigma is, what tools are used in the CIP world, what Lean Practitioning is, etc. The trainers try not to go into to much detail, but they give you a good overview of a lot of the tools and try to hit the key points on some of the easier tools to understand, like 6S and 7W (aka. Muda). The yellow belt class is a good way to get people interested in improving things within the organization. It helps people think about things they may have normally taken for granted and gives them some ideas around tools they can use in their area.