Six sigma fundamentals

• Recognize the need for change and the role of values in a business.

• Recognize the need for measurement and its role in business success.

• Understand the role of questions in the context of management leadership.

• Provide a brief history of six sigma and its evolution.

• Understand the need for measuring those things which are critical to the customer, business and process.

• Define the various facets of six sigma and why six sigma is important to a business.

• Identify the parts-per-million defect goal of six sigma.

• Define the magnitude of difference between three, four, five and six sigma.

• Recognize that defects that arise from variation.

• Define the three primary sources of variation in a product.

• Describe the general methodologies that are required to progress through the hierarchy of quality improvement.

• Define the phases of breakthrough in quality improvement.

• Identify the values of a six sigma organization as compared to a four sigma business.

• Understand the key success factors related to the attainment of six sigma.

• Understand why inspection and test is non-value-added to a business and serves as a roadblock for achieving six sigma.

• Understand the difference between the terms process precision and process accuracy.

• Provide a very general description of how a process capability study is conducted and interpreted.

• Understand the basic elements of a sigma benchmarking chart.

• Interpret a data point plotted on a sigma benchmarking chart.

• Understand the difference between the idea of benchmark, baseline and entitlement cycle time.

• Provide a brief description for the outcome 1 - Y.rt.

• Recognize that the quantity 1 + (1 - Y.rt) represents the number of units that must be produced to extract one good unit from a process.

• Describe how every occurrence of a defect requires time to verify, analyze, repair and re-verify.

• Understand that work-in-process (WIP) is highly correlated to the rate of defects.

• Describe what is meant by the term mean time between failure (MTBF).

• Interpret the temporal failure pattern of a product using the classical bathtub reliability curve.

• Explain how process capability impacts the pattern of failure inherent to the infant mortality rate.

• Provide a rational definition of the term latent defect and how such defects can impact product reliability.

• Explain how defects produced during manufacture influence product reliability which, in turn, influence customer satisfaction.

• Rationalize the statement: The highest quality producer is the lowest cost producer.

• Understand the fundamental nature of quantitative benchmarking on a sigma scale of measure.

• Recognize that the sigma scale of measure is at the opportunity level, not at the system level.

• Interpret an array of sigma benchmarking charts.

• Understand that global benchmarking has consistently revealed four sigma as average, while best-in-class is near the six sigma region.

• Draw first-order conclusions when given a global bench-marking chart.

• Provide a brief description of the five sigma wall—what it is, why it exists and how to get over it.

• State the general findings that tend to characterize or profile a four sigma organization.

• Explain how the sigma scale of measure could be employed for purposes of strategic planning.

• Recognize the cycle time, reliability and cost implications when interpreting a sigma benchmarking chart.

• Understand how a six sigma product without a market will fail, while a six sigma product in a viable market is virtually certain to succeed.

• Provide a qualitative definition and graphical interpretation of the standard deviation.

• Understand the driving need for breakthrough improvement versus continual improvement.

• Define the two primary components of process breakthrough.

• Provide a brief description of the four phases of process breakthrough (i.e., measure, analyze, improve, control).

• Provide a synopsis of what a statistically designed experiment is and what role it plays during the improvement phase of breakthrough.

• Understand the basic nature of statistical process control charts and the role they play during the control phase of breakthrough.

• Explain the interrelationship between the terms process capability, process precision and process accuracy.

• Explain how statistically designed experiments can be used to achieve the major aims of six sigma from a quality, cost, and cycle time point of view.

• Understand that the term sigma is a performance metric that only applies at the opportunity level.