QLTY07004 2009 Six Sigma 1 - Quality Tools

Describe why organisations use Six Sigma and the DMAIC improvement methodology.

Define and describe Lean concepts and tools

Describe how Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) and the associated tools can be used in the organisation.

Generate FMEAs and distinguish between Design and Process FMEAs.

Calculate process performance metrics such as DPU, FTY, DPMO and Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ).

Define, select and use the seven (old) qualitiy tools for problems solving, prioritising problems and improving processes. eg. Cause & Effect, Scatter Plots and Pareto charts.

Define, Select and Use the seven (new) management and planning tools. eg. Affinity diagrams, matrix diagrams and tree diagrams

Collect and present customer data using surveys, focus groups, interviews and appropriate sampling methodology.

Collect and Summarise data using descriptive statistics and graphical methods.

Assessment will be through a series of continuous assessment and a final written exam.

Overview: Six Sigma and the Organisation

A. Six sigma and organizational goals

•·  Value of six sigma

•·  Recognize why organizations use six sigma, how they apply its philosophy and goals, and the origins of six sigma (Juran, Deming, Shewhart, etc.). Describe how process inputs, outputs, and feedback impact the larger organization.

• Organizational drivers and metrics

•·Recognize key drivers for business (profit, market share, customer satisfaction, efficiency, product differentiation) and how key metrics and scorecards are developed and impact the entire organization.

•·  Organizational goals and six sigma projects

•·  Describe the project selection process including knowing when to use six sigma improvement methodology (DMAIC) as opposed to other problem-solving tools, and confirm that the project supports and is linked to organizational goals.

 B. Lean principles in the organization

•·Lean concepts and tools

•·Define and describe concepts such as value chain, flow, pull, perfection, etc., and tools commonly used to eliminate waste, including kaizen, 5S, error-proofing, value-stream mapping, etc.

•·Value-added and non-value-added activities

•·Identify waste in terms of excess inventory, space, test inspection, rework, transportation, storage, etc., and reduce cycle time to improve throughput.

•·Theory of constraints

•·Describe the theory of constraints.

C. Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) in the organization

•·Quality function deployment (QFD)

•·Describe how QFD fits into the overall DFSS process.

•·Design and process failure mode and effects analysis (DFMEA & PFMEA)

•·Define and distinguish between design FMEA (DFMEA) and process (PFMEA) and interpret associated data.

•·Road maps for DFSS

•·Describe and distinguish between DMADV (define, measure, analyze, design, verify) and IDOV (identify, design, optimize, verify), identify how they relate to DMAIC and how they help close the loop on improving the end product/process during the design (DFSS) phase.

II. Six Sigma - Define

A. Process Management for Projects

•· Process elements

•· Define and describe process components and boundaries. Recognize how processes cross various functional areas and the challenges that result for process improvement efforts.

•· Owners and stakeholders

•· Identify process owners, internal and external customers, and other stakeholders in a project.

•· Identify customers

•· Identify and classify internal and external customers as applicable to a particular project, and show how projects impact customers.

•· Collect customer data

•· Use various methods to collect customer feedback (e.g., surveys, focus groups, interviews, observation) and identify the key elements that make these tools effective. Review survey questions to eliminate bias, vagueness, etc.

•· Analyze customer data

•· Use graphical, statistical, and qualitative tools to analyze customer feedback.

•· Translate customer requirements

•· Assist in translating customer feedback into project goals and objectives, including critical to quality (CTQ) attributes and requirements statements. Use voice of the customer analysis tools such as quality function deployment (QFD) to translate customer requirements into performance measures.

C. Management and planning tools

•· Define, select, and use the seven new quality tools:

•· 1) affinity diagrams,

•· 2) interrelationship digraphs,

•· 3) tree diagrams,

•· 4) prioritization matrices,

•· 5) matrix diagrams,

•· 6) process decision program (PDPC) charts, and

•· 7) activity network diagrams.

D. Business results for projects

•· Process performance

•· Calculate process performance metrics such as defects per unit (DPU), rolled throughput yield (RTY), cost of poor quality (COPQ), defects per million opportunities (DPMO) sigma levels and process capability indices.

•· Track process performance measures to drive project decisions.

•· Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA)

•· Define and describe failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA). Describe the purpose and use of scale criteria and calculate the risk priority number (RPN).

 III. Six Sigma - Measure

A. Process analysis and documentation

•· Process modeling

•· Develop and review process maps, written procedures, work instructions, flowcharts, etc.

•· Identify process input variables and process output variables (SIPOC), and document their relationships through cause and effect diagrams, relational matrices, etc.  

B. Collecting and summarizing data

•· Types of data and measurement scales

•· Identify and classify continuous (variables) and discrete (attributes) data. Describe and define nominal, ordinal, interval, and ratio measurement scales.

•· Data collection methods

•· Define and apply methods for collecting data such as check sheets, coded data, etc.

•· Techniques for assuring data accuracy and integrity

•· Define and apply techniques such as random sampling, stratified sampling, sample homogeneity, etc.

•· Descriptive statistics

•· Define, compute, and interpret measures of dispersion and central tendency, and construct and interpret frequency distributions and cumulative frequency distributions.

•· Graphical methods

•· Depict relationships by constructing, applying and interpreting diagrams and charts such as stem-and-leaf plots, box-and-whisker plots, run charts, scatter diagrams, Pareto charts, etc.

•· Depict distributions by constructing, applying and interpreting diagrams such as histograms.