Six Sigma: Analyze, Improve, Control

I am called Emmanuel .V. Basam; serving with Heifer Project International (INGO) with headquarters in Littlerock, Arkansas, USA. HPI is an INGO serving smallholder farmers in the Agricultural space in Africa, Asia, Americas, and USA. We are deeply rooted in sustainable community development, value-chain development, market system analysis using supply and demand data to build responsive models to inform profitable intervention options (Value Chains) to enable the Smallholder farmers achieve a Living Income (i.e. income level that will enable farmers earn a decent life); while being mindful of the use of technology, different market players requirements (VoC, & CTQ), impact of climate change on the environment, as we focus on Youth and Women socio-economic, and financial empowerment. Project/program management is an "Art" and a "Science." Through this course, I am thrilled with the science part of identifying, designing, and managing projects/programs systematically (i.e. DMAIC, DFSS models) with well defined measures (CTQ) that are determined in a logical and participatory manner with the customers (donors and end users of the product), and with specific tools/processes/methodology within each phase to ensure the achievement of a state-of-the-art product that ends up with customer satisfaction and bringing the desired business returns to the company (i.e. a win-win approach). I am deeply impressed with the use tools and processes to define the VoC, identify CTQ requirements, use them to define the project baseline, as we use analytical tools like Cause and Effect to determine the root cause of a problem, Pareto analysis to prioritize the identified problems or root causes since we want to be efficient and effective during define, design, develop, test and deploy the products or services, then; improve the process using designed experiments or prototypes (in my company's case) using one-way or two-ways ANOVA test, to measure and compare between and within factor effects; using Statistical Process Control (SPC) and Control charts (UCL, CL, LCL), X-bar, R-charts, P, C,I, MA, MR, EWMA charts are just great tools to control the process for stability, capability and for productivity, using the Lean methodology. I am a strong supporter of process control because that speaks to our efficient use of resources that would translate into effectiveness i.e. achievement of our business results, then, positive impact (customer and other stakeholder satisfaction), then, trust and sustainability of the business. Though I have learned quality tools like FMEA, 8D, 5Whys, and DFSS; in my current job, I would mostly practice 8D and 5Whys based on our business model. However, I want to learn how to practically apply all these Lean and Six Sigma tools in any company on a part time basis, as I aspire to sink and drown myself with the tools/approaches/methodologies of Lean Six Sigma in my goal to be a sound professional or expert in Lean Six Sigma within 12 months from today. Practice makes perfect! My deepest thanks to FUM, all the lecturers in the course for their commitment and professionalism in preparing and delivering these lectures; especially Prof Holly. I would like to get and keep connect on LinkedIn. My sincere and profound gratitude to all course mates for their professional contributions. Thanks

Marvin Clarke. Employed to the Alcoholic Beverage Industry under Campari Global.

Analyse, Improve, Control is a very important program which will help you to think effectively within a production environment where challenges may arise spontaneously without little signs nor warning.

It is very important to have the right attitude and approach towards handling process challenges and eliminating process problems in the most time effective manner; all in the interest of protecting the customers interest and minimizing costs.

This program will not only help you to Analyse, but to Identify and locate process problems and to get to the direct root causes of these challenges.

The program equips you with the right frame of mind to understand the origin of process problems and to understand how they are likely to impact on the success of process activities whether 'directly' or 'indirectly'. It will help you to Scientifically examine and to breakdown how a process problem may grow, evolve, or translate into wastes, defects, or other related impacts caused by situations that are either controllable, or uncontrollable. (Common Causes/Assignable Causes)

This course helps you to link your ideologies and suspicions about damages, stoppages, defects and wastes in a production run, and to correlate such suspicion toward a set of outcomes that were undesirable.

Fairly, it is always natural to have suspicions. Hence, this program will show you how to ask the most pertinent questions relating to your Suspicions; all in an effort to get to the root of the problem in the most ample time.

Your Suspicion could be a popular opinion, supported by others; or an opinion that was questioned by others. Thus, you will then learn to formulate your hypothesis, which will then aim to prove your very own impression to be Wrong or Right to the context of the situation.

You will also learn how to communicate process problems with the internal departments, & how to better your relationship with the support functions at your company.

In my daily work life, this course has made me more a patient individual. I am much more understanding of Process Activities and I am quite comfortable with knowing that challenges may arise with any of the activities that I carry out.

Henceforth, thanks to this course, I am ready to handle Process Challenges as I am now much more direct but patient with my scrutiny of Activities.

I am much more methodical with my approach, and I understand very well how to locate root causes and to assess its impact on the entire processes and the Supply Chain.

Furthermore, I am even more capable of reporting process problems, and in working with the internal partners/support functions to address such problems.

I would recommend this course to Everyone and Anyone.

It is important to have the mindset for working with Complex Industries.

This is my honest testament.

Thank you.

My name is Rony Tabari and I am from Indonesia, I am currently undertaking a role as an Operations Improvement Advisor for Phu Bia Mining (PBM) with operations in Laos as one of the producing assets for PanAust in South East Asia.

Again, first of all, I would like to sincerely express my gratitude and appreciation to Professor Holly Ott with her skills and expertise for bringing such an excellent series of lectures, and to all the team from Technische Universität München (TUM), Mr. Martin, Mr. Reiner, also Mr. Zubair from ASQ, and all edX team for the well packaged courses. I would also like to thank to PanAust through my Operations Improvement team, for the opportunity, support, motivation for me to experience the study to enhance my professional skills and potential career advancement.

There are 3 specific things that I have been learning so far from the course that have been adding more value to the extent of the knowledge and skills I have at the moment.

• The knowledge of the need to understand the concept of RCA added with correlations and regression would add value for what I have been learning and forwarding to other team members in relates to the problem solving projects undertaken in the company.

• The statistic tools such as inferential statistics, confidence interval, hypothesis testing and even ANOVA will also be beneficial to initially look at the data available, to learn to test them and try to look what we can do better to the process. Sometimes, the team would only collect data even a good data, but it stops there.

• Using the concept we learned in Control Phase, we would also be able to see how the improvement will be controlled in order to be sustained.

Currently, during my time to deliver high quality of work with PBM, I have been on the task to engage people from different departments and levels to train, to coach and to support them to improve the process of their work to be easier, better, quicker, cheaper and safe using the Lean principles, including to use some of the problem solving tools for projects that require us to define the problem and key measurements.

Six sigma has been one of the selected training course which will equip me with useful knowledge and tools especially when we are involved in the data driven decision making process for the project. And thus we will have a more accurate decision from the data to be made and not just simply estimate.

I am looking forward to continue my study via TUM and edX for the next series of Six Sigma courses to complete the Yellow Belt certification. I also look forward to contribute my skills and study experience to seek the Six Sigma Green Belt level through applying Six Sigma concept to improve the process on some area of interest as well as practicing the tools and sharing the success stories with the team as part as my return on company's investments.

Holly Ott is an excellent teacher and the teaching methodology of the videos are clear and priceless and they urge to deepen each topic.

I am still studying the QPLS2x and the applicability of each of the tools in each of the phases is immense, for example the use of simple and multiple linear regressions to analyze any production and service process, as well as the design of experiments To improve processes and adjust them to the required quality conditions, I have had the opportunity to apply some of these tools for process improvement during my work experience but not in a Six Sigma project, this course provides powerful tools and is an exciting topic and I consider that must be passionate about those professionals who are in love with quality, processes and especially mathematics and statistics.

With every industry pursuing Lean practices in their manufacturing processes, knowledge of lean and Six Sigma becomes imperative if you want to pursue career in such an industry!!

I was initially doubtful of starting this online course (as I am not much of a virtual-class fan), but this course really blew me away with level of engagement it evoked in me! The lecture videos aren't just a formality to go though all the topics they promise but so meticulously structured that by the end of each module per course ( I have done all the modules in all 3 course in the series) you get equipped with the TOOLS of Six Sigma. The tools about which you can really boast knowing, the tools which you can use in almost any sphere of your profession that requires logical reasoning. The best part of these tools being, being able to QUANTIFY the QUALITATIVE information!

My particular favourites were the 'FMEA analysis' and the 'Regression Analysis'. The most useful tools! Even my friends have started the course seeing the level of knowledge I gained about quantifying the qualitative information and reach to conclusion of what actually the problem is and how to address it.

I can go on and on about the course and this is one of the best courses online I have done so far. And last, but not the least; Holy Ott, the lecturer in the courses, has impeccable skills of teaching and engaging with the students. I had one problem in between and she replied within minutes (and when I was late to reply, she followed up). Such a great teacher who is actually concerned in imparting knowledge, no matter even if you are her virtual student. I loved her engagement in the course as a lecturer!

I TOTALLY RECOMMEND EVERYONE TO TAKE UP THIS COURSE IF YOU REALLY REALLY WANT TO LEARN ABOUT SIX SIGMA AND LEAN!!!!
No-where, I believe, is it possible to get this quality level lectures, excercises and projects! And if you want to take it to a step furtehr, go for the TUM Certificate, The stamp of TUM speaks for itself! :)

Name: Paul Duggleby

Location: England

Type of work organisation: Healthcare

Completed course February 2021

Overall impression:

I found the course to be very informative, enjoyable to undertake but a good challenge as well. For me the statistical aspects of the course were difficult having not studied this subject for a long time, however with patience and study, I was able to overcome this.

I particularly enjoyed the modules on Lean Management as this made re-think my approach in areas such as solving problems arising at work and how to approach the problem-solving process in a scientific way.

Good aspects of the course:

Holly’s videos and presentation is very good.

The use of real-world examples was fascinating and tied the theory into actual real-world practice.

The practice questions and home work really made think and analyse the course content.

The discussion boards, as it was good to see other people’s opinions and thought process.

Aspects of the course that could be improved:

Sometimes a little more detailed explanation of concepts in the handout would have been helpful as not everyone can afford to purchase the course book.

Statistics – some of the equations were difficult to follow for those like me who have not studied statistics for some time. What would be helpful would be links to you tube videos that explain some of the basics of the models used.

Specific things I learned in that course:

Understanding Customer Expectations – In the Department I work in we had not done any specific work on clearly identifying customer expectations. Following this section of the course I have worked with colleagues on identifying the Voice of the Customer and translating this into Critical-to-Quality Characteristics utilising the Kano Model. This has allowed us to begin to look at how we can improve services to meet these expectations.

Problem solving – Before undertaking this course, my approach to work problems was to deal with the immediate problem, put the fire out so to speak and move on to the next one and carry on. Working with my colleagues we have started down the process of clearly identifying the problem and then using tools such as cause and effect analysis, 5 why’s and pareto analysis. Crucially we are learning to take the lessons learned from these exercises and to incorporate them into our work procedures.

Use of statistics – This is an area in which I have realised that both myself and the Organisation I work for are poor in. The general collection of performance/quality data and its analysis needs vast improvement and this is an area we are currently addressing. We have realised that poor data and its analysis is not giving us a clear picture on how operations are working and impacts on areas such as problem solving.

During my internship in a factory of a FMCG multinational company, it was the first time I ever heard about Lean Six Sigma. In 2018, as I was looking back at the four different jobs I've worked on in different factories, I realized that LSS was a must for me. I wanted to become an expert on it. After a long search for a Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt Certification, I found out about edX, Technical University of Munich and of course the three courses that they provided. What a life changing experience to go back to "school" in the digital way..

As I started learning more about Six Sigma, my previous knowledge from small or on-the-job trainings fell in place and they were put in order in my mind. I also learnt so much new things like the importance figuring out the root causes of your defects (and different types of relevant analysis), ways to reduce or eliminate the variance in your process and many many more.

What I also loved was that I realized that as the Lean methodology, also Six Sigma has many applications in many different fields. Even if it started at Motorola, it was really interesting for me that my fellow students from hospitals, call centers, education and other industries brought their Lean examples for discussion on our forum

Our professor Mrs Holly Ott did more than her best, as she was always so accurate in her videos and so helpful at the forum of the course. I also loved that I could study in my own terms and time, because back then I was working on shifts and believed that my difficult work schedule would be an obstacle. How wrong was I?!

Of course I also completed the other two courses of the professional certificate from TUM and gained my Yellow Belt certificate. Not only did it open new job opportunities for me, but I feel like it also evolved me both as a person and a professional.

What is even more fascinating is that this certification enhanced the confidence in me to pursue a Master's degree. I'm currently studying for my MBA with specialization in Total Quality Management and guess what? Lots of knowledge from the certification have already helped me in my master's, as I hear it again. Furthermore, I'm able to help my fellow students with the examples I took from the TUM forum. It's also a big gain for me that I had practiced on my statistic skills during the certification and when we had the statistic's class at the university, I was already trained hard on the topic because of the time I put on the certificate. That's the ultimate proof for me that even if you take this certification for academic or professional reasons, it's for sure a GREAT investment on yourself.

Hello ! I am Nuruzzaman Faruqui from Dhaka, Banglades. I am an Electrical Engineer and working in Banglalink Digital Communications Ltd with the Technical Project Team of my company . I have to work & perform with different project all over the year. For me this a is very good initiative to enrolled in this course. Course content is fantastic. I have just completed this course (Six Sigma: Analyze, Improve, Control) . I found this course very helpful for who are working with project implementation. There is lots of tools & technique i learned. I learned lots of thing to analyze , improve and control for problem solving by maintaining lots of process.

I learned the way of solving problem within a lots of process and procedure for lean production. My learning from this course :

1. To maintain Quality how to start with
2. How to Define , Analyze and improve service or production and control problem
3. 8D problem solving method
4. 5 Why & implementation of Statistical Mathematics in real field.
5. How probability can be used as a countable way by using math.
6. The difference between Probability & Statistic.
7. The mathematics of Probability & Statistics, the control chart
8. About TUM School of Management.
9. Real life example how to apply DMAIC steps: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control, 8D problem solving method

10. Vast using of Normal distribution, control chart method and lots of implementation statistical & Probability mathematics and finally what is 6 Sigma program means and from where it is born ("It was introduced by American engineer Bill Smith while working at Motorola in 1986. Jack Welch made it central to his business strategy at General Electric in 1995. A six sigma process is one in which 99.99966% of all opportunities to produce some feature of a part are statistically expected to be free of defects")

11. Defiantly learned about TUM and Beautiful presentation of all classes and flawless description of all topics from Professor Holly Ott, it is outstanding lecture of all.

This is a great course for the people who are working with projects. Thanks all the course coordinator and peers who helped me in different way and judge me by beautiful comments on my works. Thanks for fantastic presentation and choosing and explaining topics to be understand by the classical mathematics of statistics & probability. I really loved this course.

Thanks & best regards,

Md. Nuruzzaman Faruqui
Rollout Management Senior Manager
Network Service Management
Banglalink Digital Communications Ltd., Dhaka Bangladesh.

The professor Holly Ott understands what a S.M.A.R.T (specific measurable attainable realistic time) quality objective actually is for a each of her lectures. Furthermore she follows the 3E( FEMA Reinforcing the perception of fair treatment 3E) of communication which most people fail to do in lectures. Some students do not give her enough credit for how she sets up her lectures and her practice question are very good preparations for her quizzes/homework assignments. I have seen a lot of professors in my lifetime none of them of them were ever actually good, very intelligent people that mostly are perceived as critics, but none of them understood the word "Be Humble" while in a lecture especially when you are meeting your students for the first time. I have only met one other professor like her in my lifetime, that was professor Allen Claus who taught me to love organic chemistry again just by sticking to the quality objective, unfortunately I was not able to stay that field, but my point is, considered this Professional Certificate by TUMX

I took this course to understand the terminology of lean production and Six sigma, it has been very helpful in my day to day tasks, especially the fish bone diagrams and the five 5 WHYS that I constantly use to solve problem statements.

For example, if you have never heard the acronym DPMO or 8D I suggest you take this course and the next two for the professional certificate. but if you are more interested in being a critic about grammatical errors that were not intentional and obvious to see, do not take the course. I like the grammatical errors from time to time because to me, it means the people are actually humble and they are human.

My advice to TUMX Staff and Holly Ott don't change a thing about this professional certificate, you guys are doing a excellent job.

My Credentials: I have a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry from University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and I currently work as a Amazon Associate at MKE1

If my English structure is incorrect I apologize back in my high school days I was stuck with teachers for three years that spent 45 minutes a day talking about their marriage problems or money problems or just showing videos on subject instead of teaching it and that was in advanced English courses. Had the same problem with one college English course I took for a requirement, thank god for books. Got to love Self interest groups and Nepotism sometimes its not beneficial to students.

Well, I hope this helps.....

Sincerely Juan F.

I am Renante P. Guda, working in one company that specializes in Industrial Automation here in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. For the course Six Sigma : Analyze, Improve and Control, first and foremost-this is a requirement to complete Six Sigma DMAIC Training. Analyze, Improve and Control is the next important topics after Six Sigma: Define and Measure. Very important continuation wherein after defining a certain issue in an organization and gathering data measurement of such parameters, "Analyze" stage will do the analysis of data that has been gathered. Here, different methodology can be used to analyze the data such as cause and effect analysis. After analyzing which includes hypothesis testing, process improvement can be done using Design of Experiments. And last is Control, which will develop a long term execution for maintaining the improvements that has been concluded. This course is very much related on my work especially I am managing our Quality Management System. Improvements and corrective action implementation is much needed when we encounter issues. Complete phases of Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control are very much applicable to make an stable but has continuous improvement in an organization. This may initiate from customer feedback, internal organizational issues, lesson learned. Moreover, how to maintain the controls after implementation of the corrective action is necessary for organization's sustainability.

Absolutely worth your time investment, very informative, and organized. The course and its lectures are structured in way which the objective is clearly defined. Holly does a great job presenting the concepts with real-world applications of them, as well as step-by-step approaches to making practical use of them. There is an ungraded practice assignment that prepares you for the homework, and provides you with a baseline idea of how well you know the material before submitting anything for a grade.

The guest lectures also usually provide a more technical perspective that often includes some of the software and more robust calculations involved with Six Sigma.

Overall, this course is a great, informative, and introductory class for people interested in Six Sigma. Holly teaches the material that supports multiple different learning styles (visual, mathematical, informational, etc.), and she encourages the students to engage in discussion via the forums. The TUM staff quickly are experienced and devoted professionals. I would recommend this course to everyone preparing for industrial experience.

The course content is very much helpful and informative. The course really helps to gain insight into the lean production and six sigma. The concepts are very much latest and related with industry.
The course has helped me a lot for securing the internship at Schaeffler Company. The material has proved to be very much useful with the project I am working in Schaeffler.

One of the best online course to learn the concept of Six sigma. This course has helped me professionally as well as personally, whether taking a decision or solving a problem a raised.

Every lecture were very well articulated, elaborately explained with proper usage of tools and most importantly usage of formulae & examples for numerical problem solving. Discussion forum to share and learn from your peers and getting your doubts cleared by the staff, who promptly reply to every query posted. And the icing on the cake was by Mr. Reiner Hutwelker, who summarized the six sigma stages elaborately in week 8 lectures. Sigma guide is awesome!

This course teaches you the foundation knowledge required to master Lean manufacturing. Passing the 3 courses of Edx with Tum university you can achieve a yellow belt certificate in lean manufacturing that is a great acknowledgement and starting point to develop a career in any manufacturing company. Green belt certificate can also be achieved through this university based in Munich.

The classes are given using recorded videos in English. Subtitles and power point presentations to improve e following of the classes are also made available.

Every chapter is wrapped up with a quiz. If you paid attention to the classes and did the homework with a bit of dedication it will not be difficult to get a good grade on the quizzes.

Ms. Ott explains with great clarity and proficiency. She is also active in forums and email helping out students.

I definitely recommend the course to any engineering professional, project manager or student looking out to round off their experience. Lean and Six Sigma is found everywhere nowadays.

Name: Ryan Alo

Location: Papua New Guinea, Port Moresby

Company Type: Oil and Gas Upstream processing

Title: Graduate Mechanical Engineer

Three things that I learnt:

1. Analyse, improve and control Phases of the Defect elimination Process.

Defect elimination is a new department in our company. There is no six sigma professional in our defect elimination section hence I needed the assistance of this course to apply the learnings onto some key projects. I can say this course has given me a very in-depth understanding into defect elimination by teaching the relevant mathematical analysis and correct tools (i.e. Minitab) required to carry out effective analysis.

This course has given me the confidence to now develop provide a solid quantitative defect investigation information to the relevant defect owners (Stakeholders)

2. 8D methodology was an effective strategic technique learnt to be used in problem solving.

Prior to this training i have had no had no exposure to any effective guide or strategic layout (i.e. from start to finish) for engineering problem solving. We have covered the 8Ds in this course and i must say i was amazed by the simplicity of the process, hence i have discussed it with a Snr Engineer to have a look into this as i believe it will add efficiency into or problem solving.

3. In-depth knowledge on 5-why.

We do practice 5-why in my company but i had problems trying to really identify how well i do the 5 whys to ensure every why is logical until the root cause is identified. This will really help in identifying the Root/source of the problem. This section is being though by a 25 years veteran, hence gives his insights into its effectiveness and also shares his 5-why tool and the details of the all the requirements needed for an effective "problem solving" 5-why.

I strongly believe this will add value in my career. I am looking forward to go back and complete Define and Measure Course provided by TUM, then venture into a Yellow Belt Six Sigma Certification.

Six Sigma: Analyze, Improve, Control

Reviewed by Raoul.
Location: Melbourne, Australia.
Purpose of study: self-improvement and/or upskilling.

I have quite enjoyed taking this course over the last several weeks, in particular I appreciate the structure of well-explained lectures with clear examples and practice problems to do before the graded questions, so that as long as you follow along there won't be any "gotcha" moments in the graded questions.

I found Holly to be an excellent lecturer, obviously with a ton of knowledge and experience but also with a positive attitude that makes the lectures almost fun.

I enjoyed learning about and using Pareto Charts, you hear so often about the "Pareto Principle" in general that it was fun to actually get to see it and use it in an analytical sense.
I also enjoyed learning about designed experiments and how to calculate the effect of factors on the outcome.
And I also very glad to have learnt how to construct and interpret control charts, something that is relatively simple to do but can be so important for keeping a process on the right track.

I expect I will use many of the things I have learned here in the workplace, both now and in the future. What is interesting to me is that when I casually browse through job listings I now notice often they will contain references to six sigma methodology and some of the things I have been learning about, which gives me confidence that I now have a little something extra (thanks to doing this course) that might help me land that next job.

Thank you to Holly, the guest lecturers, The Technical University of Munich (TUM) and to anyone else involved in creating this course and making it available to be studied online. A great way to study especially right now with the world in the grips of COVID-19. Cheers!

My name is Lorenzo Salvi, I am from Italy and I have a Master's degree in Philosophy and Economics at the University of Bayreuth. After being hired for a Quality Control position in my hometown, I decided to follow this course in order to gain a basic understanding of how the range of statistical techniques I already lernt over the course of my studies can be used in the industry to uncover relationships between variables, to monitor a production process and to control it.

I am very happy I took this course. Dr. Ott has the rare ability to break down articulated concepts into simple bits and show their mutual relationships. Moreover, she and the TUM team put together the material in a clear and organized manner, making it rather easy for novices to get the logic behind the DMAIC cycle.

There are many elements of the course that stood out to me. The main ones are:

1. Cause and effect analysis - in particular, the section about correlation. I think there is no such thing as stressing too many times the limitations and the pitfalls of correlation analysis. Over the course of my studies I heard multiple professors covering this same material, no one of them did it quite as effectively as Dr. Ott.

2. Analysis of variance - an extremely useful tool to assess the results of experiments. Dr. Ott found the sweet spot between formulae-based and intuition-based explanations. I enjoyed her way of presenting the topic.

3. Control charts - in particular the sections about Moving Average and Exponentially Weighted Moving Average, which provided a gentle primer on Time-Series methods through clear examples.

I really look forward to completing the last section of the course on my path to becoming a Six Sigma Yellow Belt.

Thanks for the course, it was excellent!

Lorenzo

One of the best online course to learn the concept of Six sigma. This course has helped me professionally as well as personally, whether taking a decision or solving a problem a raised.

Every lecture were very well articulated, elaborately explained with proper usage of tools and most importantly usage of formulae & examples for numerical problem solving. Discussion forum to share and learn from your peers and getting your doubts cleared by the staff, who promptly reply to every query posted. And the icing on the cake was by Mr. Reiner Hutwelker, who summarized the six sigma stages elaborately in week 8 lectures. Sigma guide is awesome!

Thank you everyone who structured this course as is and my best wishes for your future endeavors.