QM - SIX SIGMA / DFSS

The Six Sigma movement dominated the quality management field during the 1990s, and expanded into the design engineering disciplines with Design for Six Sigma in the 2000s. Six Sigma expands beyond its TQM predecessor to emphasize controlled measureable process management, and option under TQM but an absolute requirement under Six Sigma with its commitments to process capability at least twice what was demanded of TQM programs in the 1980s.  Our combination of training and project mentoring assists organizations in their implementation and on-going support of their Six Sigma programs, enabling the target benefits to materialize as organizational members develop skills, implement projects, and begin to incorporate Six Sigma concepts into their everyday thinking.

Six Sigma Education

Six Sigma quality takes the core principles of quality management into broader and deeper directions that the traditional and historical appoaches to general quality management, instititionalizing the quantitative potential of TQM to implement rigorous and substantial controls. This series of courses builds on the quality management foundation, expanding into a Six Sigma improvement lifecycle or Six Sigma design lifecycle. It also covers organizational and project management capabilities that support those lifecyles.

Fundamentals of Six Sigma

This course provides an introduction to the broad view of Six Sigma, including its origins and core principles. The process improvement DMAIC lifecycle is introduced with example and demonstration project materials used to illustrate the flow and power of the primary Six Sigma approach. A variety of Design for Six Sigma lifecycle models are also demonstrated. This course provides a comprehensive overview as a starting point for subsequent learning.

Six Sigma Champion & Mentor

This workshop class covers the skills and activities required of Six Sigma champions and mentors. It is intended for managers and senior staff who typically serve as sponsors and advisors to Six Sigma projects without typically being involved in the day-to-day execution of those projects. Project success often comes down to the level of support received from champions and mentors as Green Belt staff attempt to conduct improvement and design projects using Six Sigma tools and techniques.

Six Sigma Project Management

This workshop class covers the skills and activities required of Six Sigma project managers and project leaders. It is intended for individuals pursuing Six Sigma projects who do not have general project leadership experience. Six Sigma projects require the same level of management and control as any other project, sometime more because of the cross-organizational and cross-functional nature of many quality improvement initiatives. This workshop helps assure that appropriate project management controls can be used in successfully executing projects based on the Six Sigma lifecycles.

Six Sigma Improvement I

This course provides introductory process improvement training using the DMAIC lifecycle approach. It is intended for anyone who solves problems that require process improvement, or anyone who will be involved as a member of a process improvement team. (Process improvement teams typically attend this course together.) This course emphasizes the basic interaction of Six Sigma tools and techniques across the improvement lifecycle, with particular emphasis on the Define, Analyze, and Improve phases.

Six Sigma Improvement II

This course emphasizes the more quantitative interactions of Six Sigma tools and techniques across the improvement lifecycle, with particular emphasis on the Measure and Control phases. Without this additional level of quantitative capability, too little control is placed over a project and its resulting process to assure that improvements are both real and sustainable. (This additional quantitative aspect is what largely differentiates Six Sigma from TQM.) This course results in learners reaching the level required of DMAIC Green Belt certification in many organizations.

Design for Six Sigma I

This course covers the design of specific solutions that achieve 6-sigma process capability. Designing such process capability into a solution requires an additional set of rigor and control beyond that accomplished on most improvement projects. DFSS covers an integrated deployment of business requirements, functional specifications, system design, and operational implementation that allows critical design variables to be prioritized and optimized across each layer. One view of DFSS is that it applies DMAIC improvement to each level of the DFSS design, optimizing the cross-level integration and interaction. Another view is that DFSS builds in self-correcting mechanisms by emphasizing the gap between 3-sigma control limits and 6-sigma specification limits.

Design for Six Sigma II

The rigor established in DFSS allows the design process to look at details and opportunities otherwise unavailable to solution design teams. This course covers the creative concept generation techniques of Six Sigma, and the detail definitional and experimental techniques needed to define optimal solutions across a variety of design dimensions and concerns that have been mapped to a complete and prioritized voice-of-the-customer. This course results in learners reaching the level required of DFSS Green Belt certification in many organizations.

Six Sigma with Lean

This course covers the interaction of tools and techniques in the Six Sigma and Lean Enterprise domains that target similar characteristics or features of process and product definition. The result is a synergy that allows each discipline to take advantage of the strengths of the other, while closing gaps that may occur within the discipline. Generally, applying Lean tools to Six Sigma projects improves the incorporation of timing and throughput elements into the Six Sigma design, while also raising the emphasis on removing waste. Six Sigma alone can accomplish these things, but the integration of some of the Lean tools makes the synergy explicit and more effective.

Six Sigma Refresher

A set of supplemental learning modules where attendees can reinforce and extend Six Sigma skills acquired in prior training and developed on initial projects. It is intended for Six Sigma practitioners who may be struggling with certain tools or thought processes, and would benefit from a learning session that focuses on their problem areas and concerns.

DOQS Heuristic Patterns

Heuristics for improving Six Sigma project performance.

Experienced information technology practitioners have learned over time that there are only a limited number of general problems and situations that actualy cover a majority of situations encountered on informaton technology initiatives. Our research attenpts to isolate these situations and package the results in management and analysis patterns that can be shared and incorporated into client processes and practices.

Current patterns include:

Project Types Pattern - Six Sigma projects fall into three general types depending upon whether they are attenpting to automate a process, enable such automation, or augment the process with the resulting automation. While most projects are best thought of as all three types simultaneously; generally choosing one of these three types as the dominant thought process will enhance project productivity and effectiveness.

SIPOC Compliance Pattern - A business processes need to align with business objectives and comply with extyernal regulations and customer preferences (collectively known as contraint requirements); and such alignemnt or compliance needs to be deomstrated early in the SIPOC if it is to ultimately premeate the entire process.