Overview/Description Six Sigma offers many techniques and strategies to improve an organization's processes. As a Six Sigma team moves into the Improve phase, they begin to generate a list of solutions to address the causes of problems in the process. After plans have been developed, the implementation of the improved process needs to be tested and verified to ensure the optimal choices were made. Finally, risks to the new process need to be examined and minimized. This course looks at improvement methods and implementation issues in Six Sigma. It examines Lean methods used to reduce waste,...

Overview/Description Six Sigma Black Belts have the challenging task of managing the full spectrum of personal dynamics that characterize project teams. Each team member provides the team with unique strengths and weaknesses, and combining individuals into a team produces varied results. Besides providing the basic tools and structure for smooth team operation, and maintaining the integrity of the project schedule by managing limited team time, Black Belts require the skills to minimize maladaptive team behaviors and optimize positive ones. Black Belts must therefore be aware of the...

Overview/Description In the Analyze phase of the DMAIC methodology, a Six Sigma team begins to analyze the root causes of the problems that it identified in the earlier stages. This analysis may require churning out huge volumes of data of different types. Sometimes this data is of a multivariate nature, meaning that many dependent and independent variables need to be considered simultaneously. As such, Six Sigma teams often use advanced multivariate tools to manage this type of data. Data can also be of an attribute nature, for which Six Sigma teams use a different set of data analysis tools...

Overview/Description Getting to the source of why something has gone wrong in a system or process is critical to identifying the changes necessary for resolving the problem. During the Analyze phase of a Six Sigma project, a Black Belt practitioner utilizes a variety of statistical and nonstatistical tools and methods for analyzing systems and processes to identify variation and defects, reduce costs, eliminate waste, and reduce cycle time. While many of the tools used in the Analyze phase are statistical and quantitative in nature, there are many useful nonstatistical methods. Nonstatistical...