Did you ever experience taking photos and out of the 24 shots you did, only 10 were clear? Well, I did. Worse, I spoiled the entire roll of film!
Well, thanks to technology. We are now at the age of digicams and webcams. We can take photos and then check if they are good. If we find the shots maybe blurred or crooked, or we simply don’t like any of them, we can just push a button or two and voila(!) the ugly photos are gone forever. And click again.
Sadly, all our photography woes, if we can call them that, are not solved at the onset of digital cameras. These cameras, despite boasting of hi-technology, foul up, too. Sometimes, they consume the batteries after only five photos. Or if you have the misfortune of setting your photo size to the maximum, you end up out of memory after taking one or three photographs.
Still we painstakingly take photos because we want to capture the moments. Hearing these words, one product brand comes to mind—Kodak. Kodak has been capturing moments for decades now. They’ve been there and at the forefront but they still continuously improve their processes.
In 1982, Kodak became an active participant and a charter member of the Motorola Six Sigma Consortium. Through they years, it has examined the Six Sigma Black Belt programs of several major companies (including Motorola, Texas Instruments, GE and AlliedSignal), and have taken the best of these programs to form its own.
The company’s training start by selecting employees to receive special leadership training. After passing through initial levels of training, these employees become eligible for the Black Belt Practitioner program. This intensive program takes five full weeks of classroom training, spread out over fourteen weeks. Training weeks often exceed 40 hours. After completing weeks 2–4 of training, Black Belt candidates spend 3–4 weeks working full-time on improvement projects, while relieved of their usual duties, in which they practice the skills they have learned.
Kodak Black Belt candidates devote at least 50% of their week to this project work. Certification as Black Belt Practitioners comes after having successfully completed this training program and their improvement projects.
At Kodak, Six Sigma Black Belts are expected to:
Candidates for Kodak Six Sigma Black Belt training must be good at functional disciplines, must have strong “people skills” and change-agent skills, must be proficient in applying continuous improvement and statistical methods and tools. Most importantly, they must have the respect of their managers and peers.
A Six Sigma Black Belt speaks the language of management (money, time, organizational dynamics, etc.), as well as the language of other members of the Kodak team (implementation details, quality tools, statistical techniques, problem-solving methods, etc.). Black Belts carry a high level of peer respect and are obvious leaders.
Read more: Kodak Six Sigma “Black Belt”
