Though his comments are now many months old, I thought I’d add to Daniel Sloan’s comments about a “vintage” 1995 video by Mikel Harry.
Motorola’s very first Black Belts were recognized in September, 1992, well after Six Sigma had started. They were patterned after the success of Motorola’s “statistical method engineers” (SME’s) in several Asian facilities.
Shortly after launching the BB program, Motorola created the Six Sigma Technical Institute that “hosted” a joint effort that also included IBM, Texas Instruments, and Kodak. That effort lasted only a few years. I was told it was terminated because Motorola BB candidates were too loose lipped during the training sessions, but I’d guess there were other reasons.
If you look at the BB programs at Motorola, Kodak, and TI, – IBM dropped the problem quite early – you’ll see the original philosophy (BB’s stay in their original job “injecting” the new skills into their own areas of expertise). Most other BB programs are patterned off of what Mikel brought to other companies when he left Motorola, where BB’s are hired into a new fulltime job and then trained in the skills.
The two approaches are quite different – each has its own benefits and problems.
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