Six Sigma: Define and Measure

First and foremost, I want to convey my utmost gratitude, praise, and appreciation to Holly Ott for her skillful execution and expertise conducting the course. She made the course interesting as an online course can be. Even for someone who has been out of college for 30+ years, she made it understandable. Not that I did not need to do some significant scratching of the head and dig up some supplemental information, but I did learn a great deal.

The material presented and knowledge (yes, even my old grey hair head can still retain some information) will be used as I work on implementing a new process at my company. The process is tied to the Request for Maintenance Action (RMA). As a manufacturer and distributer of ground based and naval radar systems, the process for customers to return parts that fail in the field was cumbersome and chaotic at best. Additionally, our customers were not very happy with the Turn Around Time (TAT) of receiving their repaired or replaced parts back. These times often exceeded 3 to 6 months. Unless previously agreed to for specific parts, this was completely unacceptable. Furthermore, there are some parts that are failing on a more regular basis. Thus, quality measurements and improvements were in need. Capturing the metrics of the failure rates will drive the organization to reevaluate the design or supplier and hopefully foster improvements for future system deliveries. The data collected will also be used to drive obsolescence, FMEA and FMECA analyses.

The process is somewhat complicated as there are customer reports involved that need to be evaluated, shipping and trade compliance concerns, supplier and vendor interactions and agreed to evaluation pricing, customer purchase orders, vendor purchase orders, work authorizations, etc. etc.

I have just completed the process mapping flow (with help from what I learned in the class) and have received comments back from the review. I have also been working with our Oracle subject matter experts to develop the process tool and alerts to be used. There is a great deal of historical data that also needs to be captured and input into Oracle. From there, once the process is finalized and all stakeholders are in agreement on the use of the tool. I will develop training slide decks for the requisite responsible individuals.

My ultimate goal along with the quality organization is to see a significant reduction in TAT as well as capture statistics on what parts are failing the most, under what conditions, and work with engineering and our supply chain to either modify or redesign or seek alternate suppliers that can meet the failure rate requirements. Everything we work on is driven by Mean Time Between Failure (MTBF) and Mean Time To Repair (MTTR). The limits of which are set by customer requirements. And yes, this goes down to something as small as a connector to something as large as a big drive gear.

In closing, while my company does have some process and methods for capturing this critical data for RMAs, it is, as I said dispersed and un- organized. I am confident that what I have learned in the course will help me significantly as I drive the process and help my company achieve a better RMA status and less customer complaints.

I look forward to taking more edX courses and will certainly look for others from TUM if Holly is teaching.

Sincerely,

Elias A. Elias

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.

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) and edX 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.

The course with TUM via edX has been a quite refresher for me as it has been more than 15 years since I took statistics as a subject in my college and applied some of the tools and calculations during my previous work as a management consultant in various client industries, such as measuring and prioritising defects and setting up improvement measurement baselines using regression to calculate savings.

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 Voice of Customer, and to convert into Critical to Quality measurement as per Lean principles, would also be the implementation of a ‘Pull System’.
• The knowledge in regards to statistics which equips me with advanced capability for data processing and more accurate decision making.
• The use of Six Sigma with its DMAIC phases to be able to define, formulate and process the information about the problem added with data to be analysed as proof of process improvements. Moreover, this approach has also been formulated in terms of the project approach that will be useful as project guidelines.

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.
In the mining industry, more specifically, there have been many project opportunities that involve and require data processing for improving the decision making process and actions; such as recovery, liner wear rates, inventories, and so on.

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 undertaking process improvement projects with PBM, applying the lessons, practicing the tools and sharing the success stories with my team.

Thank you again for the excellent courses.

Sincerely,

Rony Tabari

Hi, I am Husain from Bahrain, and I work in financial services and insurance industry.
For a quite long period of time, I became very interested in process improvement and quality assurance for financial services. I have read a lot of books and internet guidelines, I even made a presentation for my company's management to convince them to invest in such a critical and much important addition to the organization. Ever sense then, I've been in search for a reliable and trustworthy academic material so I can further enhance my knowledge in the subject based on a correct and solid fundamentals, and I got to say this course by the Technical University of Munich is one of the best available, if wasn't the best overall!
Dr. Holly makes everything easy and understandable, although it is an online course with no face-to-face interaction, yet it felt like I am in a classroom with some colleagues. Today I just finished the first course out of a long journey towards the green belt certification.

Hi! My name is Julio Alvarado.

I´m from Panama, and I work on the shipping industry, more specifically, my job position is Marine Scheduler. My primary role surrounds coordinating / planning the vessel´s schedule integrity, so that we meet our customer´s delivery dates for their products inside the containers onboard the vessels. (Also for the vessel to arrive ASAP and take the export cargo)

Now that I´ve finished the first part of the Yellow Belt course, I can share that I´ve found this course to be a solid 10 out of 10 stars. I´ve learned a lot more than expected, and I already have three specific learning topics that will be implemented on my team department.

1. Problem definition: Current industry conditions are well known, and we have a clear VoC / idea of what our customers need, however, with the DEFINE phase I´ve learned that it is not enough to have minimal information. The process of collecting the Voc and transforming those into CTQ requirements is a must. Also, the process of documenting such data and presenting the information in a solid format will increase the chances of communicating the defined problem to all my colleagues so we have a unify approach to meet the CTQs. This will also help higher management visualize what we should prioritize, and that´s where the Kano Model that I´ve learn will help organize which requirements need to be prioritize so that our steps moving forward on the Six Sigma project are concentrated on those.

2. Normal distribution: We have a couple of KPIs that will help us predict future events. With the normal distribution and Central Limit Theorem I´m confident that we can build a model that will help us predict the probability of "X" event occurring. I was amazed of how practical the use of the Cumulative Probabilities of the Standard Normal Distribution table is, and now I´m excited to start building such graphs in Power BI so that the mean, standard deviation and variance are calculated on the spot using DAX formulas.

3. Process Mapping: Our job description as Marine Scheduler is changing due to the effects of the global pandemic. With process mapping we can start drawing out all the new processes that are appearing as the months go by. From start to end we will need to redefine all the moving parts that go on our daily jobs, and try to mitigate any process steps that don´t bring value while we are coordinating / planning the vessel´s schedule integrity.

These were my main 3 takeaways of this course, but I can assure that my learning experience was more profound. I´m more confident on my statistical and analytical skills, and hope I can hit the ground running to start making the changes to bring value to our customer´s, while reducing waste in our operations, and get another job position that would help me establish more Six Sigma projects for our pursuit of excellence.

Julio Alvarado

Hello,

My name is Faisal Enad S Alenezi. As I know from my experience from a bachelor's degree Dr Holly Ott, was one of the best I had ever experienced coming from an in-class and online university-level course perspective. Furthermore, I want to convey my utmost gratitude, praise, and appreciation to Holly Ott for her skilful execution and expertise conducting the course. She made the course interesting as an online course can be.

Six Sigma projects are processed along with the phases of the DMAIC cycle (DEFINE-MEASURE-ANALYSE-IMPROVE-CONTROL). And each phase covers a set of chronologically interlinked rational and statistical tools. In the DEFINE phase we answer the question:

What is the problem?

First, a product or service, that deviates from the requirements must be identified as a potential for improvement. Customer requirements are then prioritized as a basis for defining the primary problems of the product or service. The specified customer requirements and the size of the problems help to define the business case for the project.

Finally, the scope and objectives of the project are defined, and a project team is formed with subject matter experts, as supporters for the project.

After defining the problems, we look for their triggering causes in the MEASURE phase.

To identify these negative influences on the problem, the as-is process is mapped and inspected first. The next step is to formulate hypotheses that reflect the relationship between triggering influences and the problem.

In the ANALYSE phase we answer the question:

What are the root causes of the influences on the problem?

At first, the measured data are evaluated graphically. Next, the process capability is calculated and – most important – the hypotheses to identify the significant influences are tested.

In the IMPROVE phase, we answer the question: What is the solution?

At first, solutions are developed to eliminate, adjust or circumvent the identified root causes. Risks and resistances against these solutions are then identified and the solutions are adapted, to put them into practice.

In the CONTROL phase, we answer the question:

How can we ensure the sustainability of our improvements?

First, the degree of improvement is calculated on a statistical basis and the achieved financial benefit is calculated. A Process-Management-Plan is then installed, with control charts to monitor the process and with countermeasures for deviations that occur. New standards for the process are developed and communicated. Finally, the project is handed over to the process owner. This means each Six Sigma project is based on a process.

Thank you, Professor Ott, all of the guest lecturers and TAs, and the rest of the TUM team that worked tirelessly to bring this MOOC to us!

My name is Katerina Christopoulos and I have an MEng degree in Mechanical Engineering. I am currently between jobs (I have just moved to Munich in pursuit of my next role - this was a great coincidence!) and having worked as a Project Quality Engineer in my previous employment, I decided to enhance my Quality skillset and dive into the world of Six Sigma.

Before enrolling, I had never taken-on an online course and had my doubts about how successful one might be in truly keeping me engaged. For this reason, I must start off by showing my gratitude to Professor Holly Ott, our lecturer, who made sure to explain concepts in detail and gave us deeper insights on every topic covered through her expertise in the field. Secondly, the structure of the course was easy to follow and the short videos kept me focussed and motivated to continue learning. Thank you to TUM for offering this course online and to edX for supporting the Professional Certificate package.

The methods/theories which stood out the most for me in the course, in terms of envisioning myself utilising them in an improvement project and getting the most valuable data out of, were:

1) Kano Model Theory and Questionnaire - this really allows us to focus on attributes that matter to the customer and ones that can truly differentiate a product from its competition, whilst not wasting energy on non-value-added changes. This helps in TIME and COST saving by weighing/prioritising the customer attributes to narrow down the focus.

2) The Central Limit Theorem - I believe was useful because despite the nature of our population distribution (which for many cases will not be normally distributed), this theory demonstrated that by taking a large number of random samples from the population and creating a sampling distribution, this will tend towards a normal distribution (the larger the sample size, the clearer the trend). This is valuable because the data obtained from a normal distribution can be converted to very useful information, such us the process capability and performance (Cp, Cpk, Cpm, Pp and Ppk).

3) FMEA - I've previously performed DFMEAs in a design process and have found this to be a great help in mitigating risk! By identifying failure modes, in a product or process, and quantifying their impact through Severity, Occurrence and Detectability, we are able to prevent potential detrimental failures before a product reaches the customer. This is a great way for a business to be PROACTIVE rather than reactive and suffering the consequences of a preventable situation.

I'm very excited to continue with my Six Sigma journey to achieving a Yellow Belt Certification and am looking forward to applying my new tools to real improvement projects!

Thanks again for this excellent course!

Sincerely,

Katerina Christopoulos

Hello,
I am Nuruzzaman Faruqui from Dhaka, Banglades. I am an Electrical Engineer and working in a Mobile Telecom Company 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: Define and Measure) . 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 maintain Quality. For maintaining quality this course is master of introduction. I learned how to define a problem and then how to measure and also how to define and measure all the problem in mathematically. My learning from this course :

1. To maintain Quality how to start with.
2. How to Define a problem
3. How to measure.
4. The 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.
8. About TUM School of Management.
9. Real life example how to apply DMAIC steps: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control.
10. Vast using of Normal distribution 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.
Tiger’s Den, House 4 (SWH), Bir Uttam Mir Shawkat Sharak
Gulshan 1, Dhaka 1212, Bangladesh

Hello, I am Prashant Bhavsar from India, working for an Automotive Industry in India.

Let me first thank Prof. Holly Ott for her incredible skill for making this course easier. Her presentation and delivery of the course was excellent and made it easy for someone like me who is out of college from last 20 years.

Here I want to add about the best things I liked about the course.
We have been going through equivalent courses but I never came so close to understanding the concept so well. Specifically about the course , the best thing was the idea of conceptualizing the content through self-doing. The exercises after each module were so excellent that you can learn every thing that has been taught during the module presentation.
Application of the training through exercises and the discussion forum was excellent.

The examples of the Case studies gave a good insight about the problem solving technique applying the Six-Sigma. I liked the explanation and application of DMAIC Process.
The mathematical part was always made enjoyable by Prof. Holy Ott. Thanks once again for your skills to make each and everything so simple. The statistics part was excellently understood.
One thing during the course that I enjoyed most was the probability distribution module and its example solves. Excellent material to learn and apply in actual work.

I liked Process-Mapping module as well. Being a part of an automotive industry and a test engineer for NVH(Noise, Vibration and Harshness) function, there are application of Process flow in my work application as well. I surely will apply the technique in my work.
The application of Six-Sigma process of Define and Measure for technical work will be applied for the Major problem solving in our function.

I would love to have the Print option of the test after solving all the questions in the module.
There is no easy way to take the module content in example solves. Example solves were great help to understand the content and will always need to be revised. So print-out of this content with the solution would always help.

I would like to share my experience, that although you might always revisit the module's video content for revising, but it would be always better to have small notes of important content while you will be studying the modules online.

I would like to thank the edx Support team and Prof. Holy ott for this wonderful online module.

Thanking you

Sincerely yours

PRASHANT BHAVSAR
INDIA

Hi everybody,

First of all I would like to say thank you to our faculty Prof. Holly Ott from TUM school of Management for a well organized videos and slides. It’s a good opportunity for me to learn about six sigma : Define and measure. I would also like to say thank you for HMA for encouraging and giving guidance during course time.

My self srinivasa rao working as sr. manager HAL, Koraput, India.

During online classes of this six sigma: Define and measure course I learnt about origins & development, terminology, themes of six sigma, about DMAIC process improvement cycle, and how to calculate the yield process, overall process in the first session and very good lesson is Early detection or inspection is better than late detection or inspection which will save money, time and credibility.

In the second secession it is very well explained about quality, voc , kano model theory , how to identified the parameter which is critical to quality, case study of candle production at KOPSCHITZ KERZEN , and also agreed with the statement Quality is no longer just the inspection team at the end of the line doing a sorting of the final products. It is a mindset; it is a philosophy, which then drives the company towards a goal of total quality management.

In the third secession we came to know about types of random variables, types of probability distributions, how to calculate the Z (standardized variable) , how to read Z values from Z table, about normal distribution, Binomial distribution, poisson distribution ,Histogram , about measurement data, attribute data. This secession having little bit mathematical calculations, particularly in Binomial distribution.

In later secession it is very well explained about normal distribution in detail, and the relation between probability density function and its standard normal density function, and understood the concept of using the standard deviation as a measure of variability. Learned about central limit theorem, effect of using sampling,.

In secession 5th we came to know about SIPOC, why to use SIPOC, Critical to quality characteristics by taking two examples, call center, pizza delivery. And also what is process mapping, why process mapping. During this secession it came to know that environment can sometimes play a significant part in the production activity and can influence the quality of the output.

During the next secession we learned about of Bias, Precision, Linearity, Stability, Resolution, what is Gage and standard, and about measured value, observed variation, true variation, long term, short term process variation and mainly measurement reliability. And also the difference between Repeatability and Reproducibility.

Finally in the last two secessions we came to know about process capability, Motorola's six sigma capability, Attribute and Discrete Capability, capability index and how to calculate, Taguchi loss function (i.e loss increase as we move away from target in parabolic form) what is tolerancing , how to calculate the tolerance on total assembly , FMEA.

Information provided in the handouts are very helpful for answering the HW secessions.

sincerely

A.Srinivasa rao

Marvin Clarke. Alcoholic Beverage Industry

My name is Marvin Clarke. I have worked in Alcoholic Beverage Production for over 14 years.

I strongly recommend this course, Define & Measure, to every and anyone with a high level of commendation to the Technical University of Munich, for affording us the opportunity to understand these Six Sigma Tools and Concepts in how to convert a customers' want and need into an Actual Product or Service that may satisfy all of the expectations.

The Define and Measure aspect of Six Sigma will help you to understand the full features of a Customer Expectation and how they translates into the ideal product or service.

This course will help you to understand the Voice of the Customer (VOC), and how the Voice of the Customer becomes the Main Quality Characteristics of a product or service. The course provides you with an insight into the importance of the Measuring these key characteristics, and setting Parameters to ensure that the product or service can be produce to the 'standard expected by the customer'.

Most notable, this course will show you how to create the Process that will be responsible for converting the customers request into an actual product or service.

This will not only gives you an insight into a Product or Service Design, but will also provide you with an understanding of the Process Design, with an emphasis on the 'Voice of the Customer' as a central focus whilst the Conversion Process is carried out.

From there, you may be able to understand the factors that are 'Critical to Quality' and you will be able to understand how these factors and variations are controlled. The course will speak of Measurement Systems and the appropriate use of Measurement Systems in controlling a process.

Thus, you will learn how to assess your process and to know its level of Capability, whilst also identifying it's Tolerance levels.

In my experience, I work with an International Company who produces products for markets all over the world.

By doing this course, I have not only gained a much better understand of my job, but have gained a much better understanding of the Processes that makes such products.

I am now able to identify weaknesses in the Processes, and I believe I am able to recommend key process improvements whilst providing high quality; but at a much lower cost.

Once again, thank you to the Technical University of Munich.

To every and anyone, this is my heart felt recommendation.

Yours Sincerely,

Marvin Clarke

It was a great honour to provide a review related to the Six Sigma Online Course by the Technical University of Munich through EDx.
Browsing the internet, you’ll find that tons of institutions, organizations and various groups are offering similar Six-Sigma Training Course. They usually have a time frame of a straight 2 to 3 months (some on a daily or weekly basis), which will be challenging if you have a full-time job and a family that you take care of. The cost can also range from USD1,000 to USD6,000, forcing you to finish the course despite realizing its complexity or ending up partially refunding some of your money. To top all of this, you need to question the credibility of the institution providing it. Do they really have the right knowledge and experience related to Six-Sigma?
The Technical University of Munich (TUM) is a well-know institution, and I immediately check the course the moment I found out they are offering the six-sigma course. My only worry is the price (quality comes with a cost) and the time it will require, plus the fact that I don’t speak German. Lo-and-behold! The entire course is for FREE! And for less than USD500, you can have a verified certificate. They also provide the course in English Language at your own phase even at 2 am you can take it anywhere. Defending on when you enroll, it allows you to finish it within a year.
Since Six Sigma encompasses a lot of tools, techniques and processes, it is very critical of how it will be presented to the audience by the presenter. WOW! Even the introduction itself make me feel very much welcome to MUNICH that I was hoping to come and visit the place and the professor one day! The course was also presented and categorized in a step-by-step process that acceptable to the wide range of diverse audiences. Prof. Holly Ott and Dr. Grunow NAILED IT! They’ve explained the topic very precisely and well, the majority of the audience can understand that.
From the Theory, Application and up to relative Examples, all the parts of the Six-Sigma course will help you fully understand and motivate you to implement it within your organization. I love the one-page Diagram they’ve shared to the students, plus the form to help and guide them towards achieving the Green belt. Amazing! The course is for free but the quality of the knowledge you’ll receive is priceless.
I WILL TOTALLY RECOMMEND THIS COURSE TO MY FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES!!!

Name: Gentian

Location: Turin (Italy)

Three specific things learned in this course:

1. How to get to the Critical to Quality Characteristics (CTQs) of a product?

In order to develop a new product or to improve a new one, the Voice of the Customer (VOC) approach based on a Customer Survey can be performed in order to understand the customer needs and expectations. These needs can be categorized and prioritized employing for example the Kano Model and then translated in measurable features with limits of variability called CTQs.

2.Establish the baseline with respect to CTQs:

The quality and quantity of data collected are of pivotal importance in order to depict the current, actual status of the process.

The quality of data is associated to the Measurement System, which includes as one of its components the instrument (the device used to obtain measurements) that needs to be tested before data collection. The validity of the instrument can be assessed through a Gage R&R Study which basically evaluates the following gage properties:

- Accuracy (how much the average value of readings approaches the true value) as opposite to bias. High accuracy and low bias is expected.

- Precision, as opposite to measurement variability, depends on repeatability error (due to instrument) and reproducibility error (associated to operators). High precision and low variability is expected.

- Stability which is related to the variability of the measurement over time.

- Linearity depending on the bias over the range of values.

- Resolution or sensitivity of the instrument

In addition, the quantity of data (sample size withdrawn from a population) needed depends on the variability of measurement which should be much smaller than product variability. The higher the variability of measurement, the larger the sample size should be.

3.Process capability:

Once the sample size is established, measurements of the continuous random variable (CTQ) are performed in order to estimate the process mean and process standard deviation (from the sample mean and sample standard deviation) for a normally distributed process. In order to assess the process capability we need to also take into account the customer specifications (upper and lower specification limits) for a specific characteristic of the product. If the process mean is centred on the target of specifications, we can use the capability index (Cp) to evaluate the process. Higher is the Cp (the ratio between the variability allowed in specifications over the current variability of the process) better will be the process. When Cp < 1, we need to improve the process by reducing the variability.

When the process is not centred on the target, then the Cpk index is employed to assess the process capability which is directly proportional to the minimum distance of the process mean from one of the specification limits and inversely proportional to the process variability (3*standard deviation).

The process can be improved by approaching the process centre to the target and by reducing process variability

The overall course arrangement and structure is useful and very systematic for all manufacturing and Development process engineer who involve in new/existing process, product and package development and for existing process, product and package face quality issue and need improvement.
Trainer provides sufficient example and very detail explanation and every chapter.

But only difficulty faced is online training cannot be focus and concentrate as need to attend others work matter even there is slot schedule to for training.
Basically, preferred Face-to-Face classroom training with trainer so the time slot is booked and no disturbance out of working condition. At the same time immediate Face-to-Face discussion with group member when facing problem is more effective.

My name is Didi. I am working in a fast-moving consumer goods company in Germany which is well-known for its cleaning tools, such as cloths, sponges, gloves, mops, buckets and etc. I used to work in the R&D department for around 10 years, but since last year I have a new role of R&D quality manager who is responsible for optimizing and standardizing the existing processes and meanwhile developing and integrating new processes into them. While I am navigating my way, I found this course really helpful which not only elaborates the basic principles clearly, but also provide us a lot of new insights to our current processes.

The first great thing I have learnt in this course is the importance of understanding the voice of customer. I have been working in the R&D department for a long time, and I am always wondering whether or not we really know the true customer expectations of our products and services. Sometimes we pretend to already know the answers of customers without actually asking them correct questions. This is often a misbelief. That is also the underlying reason we have developed many cool products we have strongly believed in but didn’t not achieve the commercial success. Now I am conducting a series of workshops in a new innovative product to guide my colleagues through the product development process by using the tools of VOC, Kano model and CTQs from the course.

Secondly, I found the chapter of measurement system analysis very useful. Whenever there is a problem with a product, we tend to judge quickly if it is a design or a process problem, but we neglect the importance of measurement system in that it helps us to confirm that the measurement system measures consistently and accurately and adequately discriminates between the parts. The measurement system analysis is the prerequisite in determining the condition of a process or the acceptability of a product. One of my targets in the new role is to make people familiar with the MSA tool and implement it in our product development process.

The last but not the least, I have learned a lot from the process capability analysis. As a R&D manager, I lack the visibility of what really happened in the production line. I keep wondering how the product site would discover and solve the problem in practice. The product design and product manufacturing seem like two isolated steps. This chapter helps me to understand that defining the product spec and evaluating the process capability are not separate tasks. In the end we would like to have a process that produces all its units within the upper and lower specification. If some of units haven’t met the requirements of specification. We can either adjust the process in order to bring the process to its full capability or modify the product spec from the design side.

In summary, I really enjoyed the first course, and I plan to continue my journey in Six Sigma by finishing up all three courses and implement a Six Sigma green-belt project.

There are three (3) specific things I learned in Six Sigma: Define and Measure. 1) The DMAIC process provides a structured approach to reduce the variation of a process. 2) Measuring samples of a process using Cp and Cpk help identify process capability and measure Pp and Ppk help identify the overall capability of the process over the long term. 3) Failure Mode and Effects Analysis is a process that helps identify the predominate issues causing failure.

I have been exposed to continuous improvement for several decades. Six Sigma: Define and Measure provides a brief, example rich, experience that summarizes all of the key components most companies seek to incorporate into their culture.

-Tom
Management Consultant
Houston, TX

Justin, engineering student from Singapore

I've learnt a great deal of depth about how to use statistics in evaluating quality metrics, which were so useful and powerful in building concrete evidence and basis for process improvements. This is a very systematic and quantifiable method which helped sharpen my thinking and analytical abilities.

Very detailed course with a lot of examples, case studies and resources presented to students. The content is very rich, and there were a lot of opportunities to practice what was learnt. The only issue I have with this course is how the yellow belt program is split into 3 parts, but it keeps covering contents from other parts as well, including adding a huge section from the green belt course which overlaps with contents covered previously. It would have been more streamlined if it was given as one course with some green belt-yellow belt overlaps either addressed or omitted.