What is Six Sigma Certification?

Aster provides certification for its Green Belt and Black Belt Six Sigma training programmes.

Delegates completing six sigma training programmes have the option to have their competence formally recognised by completing the six sigma certification programme.

How choosing the right measures can help your business to make the right improvement decisions.

Very often, the temptation in organisations is to gather as much information as you possibly can to identify how all of your processes are performing. However, this leads to “data overload” and in most cases, results in an enormous resourcing effort to gather information that is rarely, if ever, viewed, interpreted and acted upon to drive continuous improvement into the organization.

"I hadn't really intended to introduce Total Productive Maintenance (TPM), in fact I didn't even know that's what it was at that time, it simply happened as a by-product of another project" recounts Paul Wilson, Managing Director of Aster Training about his early days working as a Production Manager in the north east of England for an electronics company in the 1980's.

One of Aster’s principals was employed by a global consumer electronics manufacturing company to increase productivity and improve quality levels.

The factory, based in the north east of England, had been established for a number of years manufacturing colour television sets (CTVs) for the UK market. It had however grown so quickly that the workforce of over 200 staff lacked unity and leadership.

Aster Training won a contract in early 2005 to provide refresher training in purchasing skills for the Marshall Amplifications plc materials team. Established for over 40 years, Marshall’s design and manufacture amplifier and professional public address systems for the music industry.

Steve Beckwith, Production Manager takes up the story “Because our products are physically very large, (Trailer mounted, self propelled, track mounted and vehicle mounted hydraulic access equipment) prior to lean implementation, space was at a premium. Even the outside yard where we completed final inspection and customer acceptance testing was cramped – we urgently needed to do something different and manufacture our products in a different way.

Aster Interim Solutions were engaged by Axis Electronics Ltd to carry out a review of business activities. In the latter part of 2003, Aster was given the objective of introducing Lean Manufacturing to the Bedfordshire based electronics manufacturing company. The objectives of the project were to generate improvements to enhance customer satisfaction and to produce a marketing strategy which encompassed the achievements of the project. The scope would involve training the senior managers, introducing the project to the workforce and then leading the implementation of the resulting plan.