After completing this course, students will be able to:

• Communicate using Six Sigma concepts.
• Think about the organization as a collection of processes, with inputs that determine the output.
• Relate Six Sigma concepts to the overall business mission and objectives.
• Use the concept of a sigma level to evaluate the capability of a process or organization.
• Understand and apply the five-step DMAIC model as a framework to organize process improvement activity.
• Employ a wide range of process improvement techniques, including design of experiments, within the DMAIC model.
• Recognize the organizational factors that are necessary groundwork for a successful Six Sigma effort.
• Employ your Six Sigma skills to lead a successful process improvement project and deliver meaningful results to the organization.

This course prepares students to take the IASSC Lean Six Sigma Black Belt or the ASQ Six Sigma Black Belt national certification exams.

Course Outline:

Lesson 1: The Six Sigma Management System

This lesson focuses on the extension of Six Sigma into a management system that encompasses all levels of an organization. While implementing Six Sigma through individual projects has produced significant results in many organizations, sustainable, breakthrough improvements are realized by those organizations whose leadership has embraced Six Sigma and incorporated it into their vision, strategies, and business objectives – in short, adopted Six Sigma as the system for managing their organizations. The Six Sigma Management System enables a leadership team to align on their strategic objectives, establish their critical operational measures, and determine their organizational performance drivers and then use those to implement, drive, monitor, and sustain their Six Sigma effort. Six Sigma has been labeled as a metric, a methodology, and now, a management system. While Green Belts, Black Belts, Master Black Belts, Champions and Sponsors have all had training on Six Sigma as a metric and as a methodology, few have had exposure to Six Sigma as an overall management system. Reviewing the metric and the methodology will help create a context for beginning to understand Six Sigma as a management system.

Lesson 2: Six Sigma and Lean

Many different approaches have been taken to improve business performance over the last several decades. Like anything in life, each approach has its own set of strengths and weaknesses. Each one also offers a slightly different perspective on how to improve performance. Some of these different perspectives may be beneficial to organizations trying to implement broad based improvement efforts.

Lesson 3: Process Improvement Teams and Tools

When an organization adopts the Six Sigma Management System as their business process improvement model, it becomes an umbrella business strategy that should include a variety of team-based initiatives. The purpose of this lesson is to address various team approaches that have been proven to be successful as part of a Six Sigma system, to present management’s varying roles and responsibilities with each team approach, and to illustrate the common tools used by teams to implement improvements and types of measurements that drive performance.

Lesson 4: Six Sigma Teams, Methodology and Tools

This lesson is dedicated to the power of Six Sigma teams that apply a deeper level of analysis and statistical rigor to reduce variation, stabilize and optimize business processes – all for the purpose of bottom-line impact for the organization.

Lesson 5: Six Sigma Impact Measurement

This lesson focuses on measuring the results of a Six Sigma campaign. It will first review the importance of metrics and measurement to all improvement activities. Then it will focus on the need to have a selected, few critical strategic metrics to drive the Six Sigma campaign. It will discuss some historical difficulties with metrics and improvement campaigns, and suggest guidelines for selecting meaningful metrics and goals for organizational performance improvement. The discussion will not be limited to financial goals and metrics. Business objectives that drive Six Sigma Campaigns must be multifaceted.

Lesson 6: Supplemental Information

This lesson will provide supplemental information on two specific topics: Innovation and Measurement System Analysis. Achieving a dramatic improvement is a defining attribute of Six Sigma. Without realizing an innovative or breakthrough solution, one misses the main tenet of Six Sigma and lessens the opportunity to succeed. Six Sigma implies lots of improvement very fast. Incremental improvements are not sufficient to achieve Six Sigma performance. It is not just the current performance; instead, the rate of improvement equally matters. The power of Six Sigma lies in its disciplined, structured approach to identifying and solving process issues. The biggest potential pitfall of the Six Sigma approach is failing to adhere to that discipline. It is in the area of Measurement System Analysis (MSA) that discipline often falls by the wayside. When considering measurements for non-manufacturing processes, MSA often becomes the most neglected step.

All necessary materials are included.

Certifications:

This course prepares students to take the IASSC Lean Six Sigma Black Belt or the ASQ Six Sigma Black Belt national certification exams.

NOTE: ASQ Six Sigma Black Belt requires two completed projects with signed affidavits or one completed project with signed affidavit and three years of work experience in one or more areas of the Six Sigma Body of Knowledge.  You do not need to be a Certified Six Sigma Green Belt.  Work experience must be in a full time, paid role. Paid intern, co-op or any other course work cannot be applied towards the work experience requirement.