Overview/Description An organization's success depends upon how it delivers on its processes. Before Black Belts can begin to improve an organization's processes, they must measure those processes with the appropriate data. The crucial steps of data collection and measurement precede process improvement in any Six Sigma initiative. Successful data collection starts with careful planning; a knowledge of various data types, sampling strategies, and measurement methods; and an ongoing awareness of best practices for ensuring data accuracy and integrity. Only reliable and suitable data will yield...

Overview/Description Organizations need to make inferences about a population from sample data, and understanding how to calculate the probability that an event will occur is crucial to making those inferences. In a Six Sigma context, it is often important to calculate the likelihood that a combination of events or that an ordered combination of events will occur. Understanding probabilities can provide Black Belts with the tools to make predictions about events or event combinations. To make accurate inferences about a population from the sample data collected in the Measure stage, Black...

Overview/Description To improve the processes behind an organization's products and services, a Six Sigma Black Belt must measure them. But first, they must identify those processes. Among the many Six Sigma tools, several are designed specifically to isolate relevant process variables, determine their relationships to each other, prioritize their importance relative to customer or business requirements, and assess their efficiency. Using SIPOC and cause-and-effect matrices, Black Belts can determine which process inputs to target first – those with the most significant impact on important...