Learning about Lean Six Sigma tools and its implementation should be part of our future generation education process. If the acronyms DMAIC were instilled at an early age, just the idea of having a goal or intention (Define) would organize their thinking processes. In India, they do expose Six Sigma to young people as workshops with hands-on training. In a government school in 2013, students in the 9th grade (ages 14-15) were taught a real life application to Six Sigma.
The first hurdle was to get the students engaged in the activity of learning Six Sigma methodology. Most of the training up to that point was mostly in theory, with very limited hands-on real life training.
So origami, which is the Japanese art of folding paper into shapes and decorative figures, was used.
How Teams Were Created:
- 36 students
- 6 teams of 6 were created
- Labeled A, B, C, D, E, F
- Each team was given a newspaper
- Each team also given 1 page of instruction on origami
Instructions Given:
The teams were told that a customer was interested in buying origami boats at the cost of $10.00 per boat.
Each piece of paper used would cost $1.00.
They were also told that the customer wanted to buy 10 boats and that they would buy from either team, depending on who had the boats first.
After familiarizing themselves with the process of origami, it took about 10 minutes to make a boat. However, many boats were not sold, so they must figure their loss by multiplying that number by 9 (which is the profit they would have made).
The students in the 4-hour workshop completed 10 origami exercises and knew the Lean waste and tools that they were expected to learn. They were also tested at the end of the workshop, and 29 out of 36 students scored higher than 90%, and the remaining 7 scored above 73%. All the questions were scenario type questions, and they had 1 minute to answer each question.
This would be a great way to utilize a Six Sigma certification, and help our future generation! For more information on our Six Sigma courses or services please click visit our website.
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