Quality 4.0 — Green, Black and Master Black Belt Curricula

Abstract

Industrial Big Data (IBD) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are propelling the new era of manufacturing - smart manufacturing. Manufacturing companies can competitively position themselves amongst the most advanced and influential companies by successfully implementing Quality 4.0 practices. Despite the global impact of COVID-19 and the low deployment success rate, industrialization of the AI mega-trend has dominated the business landscape in 2020. Although these technologies have the potential to advance quality standards, it is not a trivial task. A significant portion of quality leaders do not yet have a clear deployment strategy and universally cite difficulty in harnessing such technologies. The lack of people power is one of the biggest challenges. From a career development standpoint, the higher-educated employees (such as engineers) are the most exposed to, and thus affected by, these new technologies. 79% of young professionals have reported receiving training outside of formal schooling to acquire the necessary skills for Industry 4.0. Strategically investing in training is thus important for manufacturing companies to generate value from IBD and AI. Following the path traced by Six Sigma, this article presents a certification curricula for Green, Black, and Master Black Belts. The proposed curriculum combines six areas of knowledge: statistics, quality, manufacturing, programming, learning, and optimization. These areas, along with an ad hoc 7-step problem solving strategy, must be mastered to obtain a certification. Certified professionals will be well positioned to deploy Quality 4.0 technologies and strategies. They will have the capacity to identify engineering intractable problems that can be formulated as machine learning problems and successfully solve them. These certifications are an efficient and effective way for professionals to advance in their career and thrive in Industry 4.0.