Certificate in Lean Six Sigma

This certificate was formerly called Certificate in Quality and Productivity Management.

Lean Six Sigma is a proven strategic organizational tool that enables teams to deliver value for customers, generate returns for shareholders and even create a meaningful workplace environment for employees. It provides an enabling framework that allows a business to systematically manage the organization, identify improvement opportunities, develop solutions and ensure that the benefits are realized.

This unique certificate focuses on building your capability in Lean Six Sigma, Change Management and Project Management and will empower you to bring meaningful changes to your organization.

Required Courses

SCS 2699 Foundations of Quality and Process Excellence
SCS 2700 Lean Six Sigma Essentials
SCS 2544 Advanced Lean Six Sigma Techniques

Certificate Requirements

• This certificate requires the successful completion of the 3 required courses.
• Students have two years from the start date of their first course to complete the certificate.
• Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) may be granted for SCS 2699 Foundations of Quality and Process Excellence.

Main Themes of the Courses

1. Foundations of Quality and Process Excellence

This introductory course covers the concepts associated with process excellence and quality management, and provides students with a solid grounding in the ideas and practices of quality management, which can be used to improve Quality in service, transactional, and manufacturing processes.

The course will cover the theories associated to quality, including the history of quality management, the predominant quality management standards used in industry today, and methodologies employed (TQM, Lean, Six Sigma, Theory of Constraints). In addition, the student will learn basic statistics that are used in quality management and how they are applied in quality assurance and quality control situations. Planning for quality, designing processes, and managing change initiatives will also be presented within the context of quality management leadership. The student will also engage in in-class workshops to apply the lessons learned.

On a more practical note, the student will be encouraged, throughout the course, to demonstrate value to their organization, by applying the concepts that have been taught in class.

By the end of this course, you will:

• Understand what Quality is, and how it relates to business strategy
• Understand how the Customer, the Business and the Shareholder contribute to defining Quality
• Have familiarity with the leading quality and process excellence methodologies/frameworks in use today (ISO, TQM, Lean, Six Sigma, and Theory of Constraints), and understand how they fit into the Quality Management discipline
• Understand and be able to apply Lean Six Sigma DMAIC methodology
• Have exposure to process design/redesign principles based on 7Rs
• Understand the difference between Quality Planning (QP), Quality Improvement (QI), Quality Assurance (QA) and Quality Control (QC)
• Understand the basic statistical concepts that QA and QC rely upon
• Understand the challenges and opportunities of implementing or re-tooling an existing quality management program

2. Lean Six Sigma Essentials

This hands-on course covers the most widely used (and least analytical!) concepts associated with Lean Six Sigma. The essential tools chosen for this course allow any student to identify improvement opportunities, develop solutions and ensure that the benefits are realized. These simple to use tools will allow you to lead project teams and get those much needed ‘quick wins’ to sustain you on your Lean Six Sigma journey.

The course will cover tools to aid in: change management, project selection, scope definition, project chartering , leading Kaizen events, non-traditional brainstorming techniques, mind mapping, FMEA, Simplified QFD and many other tools. In addition to building up your Lean Six Sigma ‘toolbox’, the instructor will weave real examples of the tools in action to explain the benefits and pitfalls that are commonly observed.

By the end of this course, you will understand how to:

• Understand the change management aspects of leading people through change and what tools/techniques are available to help manage the process of ‘people change’
• Understand how to select ‘high value’ projects and how to clarify scope appropriately
• Be able to build a Lean Six Sigma project charter and be prepared to manage team and/or stakeholder dynamics
• Be able to prepare for, and lead a Kaizen Event or “Rapid Improvement Event (RIE)”
• Understand different brainstorming techniques and how they can assist in identifying root causes or generating solutions
• Be able to select solutions using a variety of group tools, including QFDs and a Pugh Matrix
• Be able to implement a variety of controls (FMEA, Skills Matrices, Control Plans etc…) to ensure that the results of the RIE are sustained.

Prerequisite(s):

SCS 2699 Foundations of Quality and Process Excellence

3. Advanced Lean Six Sigma Techniques

This hands-on course covers the more advanced tools required to round out the learner’s Lean Six Sigma toolkit. Participants will learn how to improve project definition, process baseline analysis, process improvement, and process control by working with Minitab 16 (a statistical software package). Techniques covered during this course will cover a number of topics including normal and non-normal data, quantifying measurement system error, quantifying baseline process performance, statistically analyzing process variance, analyzing Designs of Experiments and analyzing various control charts.

By the end of this course, you will understand how to:

• Select, apply and interpret advanced Lean Six Sigma analytical tools for project definition, process baseline analysis, process improvement, and process control using Minitab 16 statistical software.
• Quantify the variability in measurement systems for processes that yield both attribute & variable outputs (Gage studies on repeatability, reproducibility, linearity, and bias).
• Calculate process capability using a variety of techniques including Sigma Level, Cp, Cpk, Pp, Ppk, transformations, and alternate distributions.
• Interpret advanced graphical and statistical analytics to identify root causes, relationships, and opportunities for improvement and control.
• Identify and formulate critical questions or hypotheses to be investigated through statistical analysis and experimentation (Hypothesis testing tools include; Chi-square, t-tests, F- tests, ANOVA, proportion tests, and non-parametric tests of median).
• Create, conduct, and analyze full and fractional factorial design of experiments (DOE) and process simulations to assess the impact of key variables and optimize process performance to minimize costs and maximize business impact.
• Analyze correlation and regression studies, including simple linear, multiple and logistic regression, general linear (GLM), and advanced regression models.
• Identify patterns and special cause variation in processes through various forms of control charts (R, S, Xbar, I-MR, P, NP, C, and U charts)

Prerequisite(s):

SCS 2699 Foundations of Quality and Process Excellence
SCS 2700 Lean Six Sigma Essentials