It’s interesting because I found Mech design engineers with green belts to usually be really sharp. I only met like one black belt design engineer and he pivoted careers a decade ago. But most black belts I met in QA were managers. Most of the technicians that did the work weren’t certified but lived and breathed the products for decades.
My experience was that the tools are absolutely useful. Green Belts are those who learned the tools, but stayed at their day job. Black Belts are when you pivot into doing it full time.
Much like people who underperform in technical fields often pivot to Management, you see the same in the pivot to Process Improvement. That creates the issue of the lowest performers at the actual job being the ones most inclined to pivot into that position.
There are always good ones (I'm biased, but think I was). The issue is that they are a relative rarity due to those (and I'm sure other) factors.
The pivot part rings so true, especially “Engineering Services”, aka process and infrastructure control. They often lead the engineering change committee too. I shudder just recalling those meetings.
That said, it’s anecdotal at best; I don’t pretend to have a statistical sample. I also noted that there are exceptions.
I spent a significant amount of time in management and Process Improvement, so I’m speaking from experience of the inside of those within my section of the DOD.
