Hi everyone,I have heard a lot about Six Sigma in the US. How important is it becoming in Europe? Do people care at all? Opinions about it?Thank you.

I work in an area of consulting where I come across Six Sigma quite regularly. In my experience, it's important to have a general awareness of it, but it isn't important to have any real expertise. Six Sigma Black Belts are typically embedded in the business rather than coming from the consultant team. So while I've worked on lots of projects where I'll have a Black Belt assigned to a project, I've never been in a situation where we've provided the Black Belt ourselves.Hope this helps.

Thanks VI,when you speak about the consultant team, which kind of coinsultant team are you talking about? I know that in Strategy and Operations in the US, it is common to have a Black Belt in the consulting team.Also, according to your answer, would you say then that there should be a greater demand for black belts in non-consulting businesses? That's interesting.

Sorry -- I realise that the answer was a little confusing.Imagine we're doing a cost reduction job -- the project team would probably include a couple consultants and a couple team members from the client. The Black Belt would most likely be one of the team members from the client.Six Sigma hasn't caught on here the way it has in the US. While there are some companies where it is firmly embedded (I've worked in a couple), in most of the organisations I've come across, it's not even on their radar.

VI thanks again for clarifying. It is definitely useful and interesting. Now a final question, if I may, what is your opinion of Sigma as a tool to improve inefficiencies / deffects in a firm? Would you say it is useful?

From my point-of-view, Six Sigma is an excellent operational tool for improving performance on a continuous basis and generally running a 'lean' organisation. But organisations don't hire consultants for small, incremental changes. They bring in consultants for big change -- and these are generally in the form of fundamental process redesign rather than Six Sigma 'tweaking' of the existing processes.

Thank you. That was helpful indeed.