SQT Blog

Congratulations to all recent recipients of HETAC awards for their Six Sigma training. Last month ninety people received awards over the four HETAC accredited Six Sigma courses.

Seven people completed Black Belt training. Their projects realised cost savings of on average €300,576 per project.

Four people completed Back Belt, Service and Transaction projects. Their projects averaged €71,968 savings.

Sixty Five people completed Green Belt, HETAC level 7 projects. The average cost saving was €98,722 per project.

Fourteen people completed the Green Belt HETAC level 6 course, which involves a case study rather than completing a project.

In all cost savings of a total of €8,808,801 were achieved over seventy six projects.

There are many other Six Sigma projects underway. People are working hard completing these and achieving more very tangible cost savings for their companies. These savings are critical for the survival of many companies in the economic realities of 2010 Ireland.

Without doubt, Six Sigma methodology is now proving to be a very important tool.

Congratulations to all on the excellent results in the January exams for the NEBOSH International Diploma in Occupational Health & Safety.

This is a supported distance learning course. Generally two courses commence each year in September and January. Each student takes three examinations, (Units A, B and C), and then completes an assignment (Unit D). Exams are held twice per year (January and July), at centres throughout the world. Successful completion of all four Units leads to being awarded a NEBOSH Diploma. The award is at Level 8 on the National Framework of Qualifications.

The NEBOSH Diploma exams are challenging exams. The overall NEBOSH pass rates for January for all exam centres were as follows:
Unit A 39%
Unit B 51%
Unit C 45%

I’m delighted that the pass rates for SQT candidates for each Unit exceeded the NEBOSH average:
Unit A 53%
Unit B 71%
Unit C 54%

In fact, the latest cohort of students who commenced in September 2009 and sat the Unit A exam in January, achieved an overall pass rate of 64%. When one compares this to the NEBOSH average pass rate of 39%, one sees what a good result they achieved.

Well done to everyone, all the hard work paid off. Well done also to the tutor for this course, Finbarr Stapleton.

This YouTube video is about 5 minutes long and presents some thought provoking statistics.

For the record when I viewed it, the video had already been viewed 10,171,463 times!

The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) are seeing a big increase in the number of requests for information from people interested in starting a new food business, probably reflecting the downturn in the economy. In the National Technology Park here in Limerick, a new business, yum yums, has recently started delivering good quality lunches, door to door to offices and businesses in the Park. The refrigerated van arrives daily before lunch, selling sandwiches, wraps, soups etc.

Sean and Sinead set up their new food enterprise in 2009. Sean was a self-employed builder and Sinead a Sales Manager in GE Money. We all know the difficulties in the building sector and then Sinead became redundant from her sales job. They decided to establish this food business. Last year they had one van delivering door to door. Since January they now have two.

To support such enterprises, the FSAI has just published a new ‘Guide to Food Law for Artisan/Small Food Producers Starting a New Business’. The guide covers areas such as:

– Food Law
– Registration and Approval
– Food Safety Management System
– Training
– Traceability and Recall
– Legislation Summary
– Voluntary Irish Standards

Training is one area where we can help Artisan/Small Food Producer. We have twelve Food Safety training courses covering HACCP, Food Allergen Control, Food Safety Auditing, Food Legislation, Food Hygiene, Risk Management and the ISO 31000 standard.

This guide is available on the FSAI website.

Sean and Sinead hope to employ 10 people by end 2010. We wish them the very best of luck with their venture.