The influence of a lean six sigma green belt course on European students. A practical case

Purpose – The Lean Six Sigma Green Belt course developed for the European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management association, ESTIEM, is meant to offer a new blended learning approach for teaching to Industrial Engineering and Management students across Europe. This paper aims to investigate the impact that the participation of such a course had on students, and how it can empower them. The paper will focus on the impact that the Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Course has on students by investigating and comparing students from different countries that experienced different educational system structures.
Design/methodology/approach – Previous studies are going to be used to create a bit ofbackground about Lean Six Sigma and to show the benefits of the blended learning method appliedin the Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Course (Rajala, Jarrett, and Turtiainen, 2017). An analysis of what benefits an optimized educational system that seems to maximize the learnings for a student can bring follows. Here, the authors aim to further understand the implications and the impact that such optimized methods have on students and universities.
Findings – The authors aim to show what the reality is showing in a more formal and thoughtful way. Data was collected through a survey spread out to around 200 students of Engineering and Management across Europe. So far, the collected data is quite promising, confirming the reality. The main goal still is to improve a collaboration between Universities and students, hence to increase the engagement level of students and the social return on investment for Universities (expressed in a greater visibility among companies). At the same time, it proves that learning Quality Management, in an international environment, facilitates the personal development as wellas increases the likelihood of getting better opportunities by having a greater freedom of choice. By
aiming to be a rather empirical confirmation of the Blended Learning Method, this paper does not intend to be disruptive, or a paradigm shift, but rather a confirmation that combining the Blending Learning Methods with Lean Six Sigma is exponentially beneficial for students, by improving in different areas simultaneously.
Research limitations/implications – The main limitation is the number of received answers to the survey. A sample size of 32 out of 200 possible can be analysed. For further research, the sample size should be increased. As the course is ongoing around Europe, the database is growing continuously. However, gathering this number of students going through the Course in the first year may already emphasize some of the points made. In the future, the survey should be extended. Shedding light on the premises at universities as well as gathering feedback for the course design (i.e. blended learning approach) may be investigated. Moreover, collaboration possibilities between student’s associations or individual students for bringing such courses to their universities and further developing the Course prompt another interesting aspect. The third party, the companies, should be included in the research as well. One of the major parts of the teaching is the application of the learnt methods, tools and approaches. Every participant of the course needs to finish a practical project (e.g. Green Belt Project) for finalizing the course participation with receiving the Green Belt Certificate. Surveying the companies which accompanied and offered the practical project of at least one student would give insights on how well students learn and give insights to practical applications.
Originality/value – This paper describes the current situation and proves research regarding the impact of education in Lean Six Sigma and Quality Management from around 31 European countries. It enables to see the benefits of the blended learning method in combination of the Lean Six Sigma Knowledge from an Industrial Management and Engineering student perspective.

See paper

See paper

Lean Six Sigma, Green Belt, ESTIEM, European Educational System, Industrial Engineering, and Management