Customer Success Story | Infineon: Driving Global Process Excellence through Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt Training with TUM
How do you consistently upskill employees in one of the world’s most complex industries at scale, and independent of location or time zone? Together with the TUM Institute for LifeLong Learning and the international learning platform edX, Infineon Technologies has developed a continuing education program that addresses exactly this challenge.
The Company
Infineon Technologies AG is one of the world’s leading semiconductor manufacturers, with more than 58,000 employees across over 70 locations worldwide.
The company develops and produces innovative microelectronics that enable key technologies of our time—from sustainable mobility and energy-efficient power supply to secure IoT applications.
A Global Technology Leader Committed to Lifelong Learning
Semiconductor manufacturing is extremely demanding: hundreds of finely tuned process steps, production cycles lasting months, and the highest requirements for precision. Even the smallest deviations can result in significant costs.
Ensuring stable processes and consistent quality standards worldwide requires qualification programs that are scientifically sound, practice-oriented and globally scalable.
In 2021, Infineon integrated the TUM Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt Certification Program into its Infineon Academy to establish uniform quality standards across the organization. Delivery via edX makes the program accessible anytime and anywhere regardless of location or time zone.
Building on this foundation, Infineon developed a blended Green Belt certification program that uses the TUM curriculum as its methodological foundation and is complemented by a company-specific continuous improvement approach. Today, it is a core component of the global Quality Excellence framework in the Automotive and Security segments.
Individual Success: Learning With Immediate Impact
Maria Roma, Principal Process Engineer at Infineon, used the TUM Yellow Belt program to successfully resolve a complex customer issue through structured problem analysis and was recognized with a Spot Award for her achievement.
Despite already having extensive professional experience and multiple postgraduate degrees, she emphasizes how much the program improved her way of working. Thanks to the flexible, online-based format, she was able to seamlessly integrate the training into her professional and family life.
More Than 180 Certified Yellow Belts Worldwide
Since the pilot phase at three European sites, the program has been continuously rolled out globally.
Today, more than 180 employees worldwide hold a TUM-certified Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt, strengthening a consistent, international quality culture.
“The Six Sigma certification program that we developed together with the Technical University of Munich (TUM) provides us with an excellent tool to offer targeted and tailored capability development in methodological approaches to technical problem-solving, especially in the regions and at smaller sites.
Through the DMAIC certification projects alone, we have been able to realize savings in the seven-figure euro range.”
Stephan Tente
Lead Principal Problem Solving & Continuous Improvement, Infineon Technologies AG
“Our Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt Professional Program has been on edX since 2017, one of the first and most successful professional programs ever, with nearly half a million participants to date.
The program covers the theory for Six Sigma to a Green Belt level and Lean Production on the level of a university industrial engineering course.
The three courses have over 30 hours of lectures, more than 500 practice and homework problems, mini-case studies, mini-projects and interactive statistics exercises, allowing students anywhere in the world to trulymaster the fundamentals of Six Sigma and Lean.”
Prof. Dr. Holly Ott
Senior Lecturer, Operations and Supply Chain Management, TUM
