Six Sigma Green and Black Belt Certification with Exam

Course Overview:

The Six Sigma Management System has evolved to become an integration of business best practices that unleashes the power of the Six Sigma tools and methods in a way that fosters focused execution and breakthrough improvements. Using the Six Sigma Management System as the overall context for driving business improvement, this course provides unique insight for Black Belts, Six Sigma leaders, and all Six Sigma practitioners for how to apply the wide variety of tools and methods that sit inside of the Six Sigma tool set.

Students will develop a thorough understanding of all aspects within the phases of D-M-A-I-C. They will also develop an understanding of how to perform and interpret Six Sigma tools and how to use standard principles of Lean.

After completing this course, students will be able to:

• Communicate using Six Sigma concepts.
• Think about the organization as a collection of processes, with inputs that determine the output.
• Relate Six Sigma concepts to the overall business mission and objectives.
• Use the concept of a sigma level to evaluate the capability of a process or organization.
• Understand and apply the five-step DMAIC model as a framework to organize process improvement activity.
• Employ a wide range of process improvement techniques, including design of experiments, within the DMAIC model.
• Recognize the organizational factors that are necessary groundwork for a successful Six Sigma effort.
• Employ your Six Sigma skills to lead a successful process improvement project and deliver meaningful results to the organization.

The content in the certification course will prepare students to take the associated industry recognized exam.  Please note that the individual state requirements may vary.  Students will be responsible to check with their state’s governing body for state specific requirements.

 

Course Outline:

Six Sigma Green Belt Certification Prep Curriculum:

Lesson 1: Building the Responsive Six Sigma Organization

Six Sigma is a rigorous, focused, and highly effective implementation of proven quality principles and techniques. Incorporating elements from the work of many quality pioneers, Six Sigma aims for virtually error-free business performance. In this lesson, we will introduce the Six System Organization.

Lesson 2: Recognizing and Capitalizing on Opportunity

Lesson 2 describes the organizational mechanisms required to recognize the key stakeholder needs, which provide opportunities for organizational growth and, in some cases, survival.  This chapter describes a number of approaches for gathering customer input on their value definition. It then explores other means of identifying opportunities, including quantifying costs of poor quality, benchmarking best practices, and innovation.

Lesson 3: Data-Driven Management

In this lesson, we will develop an understanding of how data-driven management provides a means of achieving organizational objectives by quantifying needs or wants of stakeholder groups relative to current baselines, and acting upon the data to reduce those critical gaps in performance.

Lesson 4: Maximizing Resources

This lesson addresses Six Sigma project selection and the management support activities related to project success.  Topics will include goals, project management, project selection, and project execution.

Lesson 5: Project Management Using DMAIC and DMADV

In this lesson, we will discuss and develop an understanding of the Define-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Control model and the Define-Measure-Analyze-Design-Verify model by examining the aspects of each as well as comparing and contrasting the two.

Lesson 6: The Define Phase

In this lesson, we will discuss the key objectives within the Define phase:

• Develop the Project Charter
• Define scope, objectives, and schedule 
• Define the process (top-level) and its stakeholders
• Select team members
• Obtain authorization from sponsor
• Assemble and train the team

Lesson 7: The Measure Phase

In this lesson, we will discuss the objectives of the Measure stage, which include:

• Process definition: to ensure the specific process under investigation is clearly defined.
• Metric definition: to define a reliable means of measuring the process, relative to the project deliverables.
• Establish the process baseline: to quantify the current operating results as a means of verifying previously defined business needs, and to properly substantiate improvement results.
• Evaluate measurement system: to validate the reliability of data for drawing meaningful conclusions.

Lesson 8: Process Behavior Charts

In this lesson, we will discuss various topics related to behavior charts, including distribution, control charts for variable data and attributes data, control chart selection and organization, short run statistical process control, SPC techniques, and process capability indices.

Lesson 9: Measurement Systems Evaluation

A good measurement system possesses certain properties. First, it should produce a number that is “close” to the actual property being measured.  Second, if the measurement system is applied repeatedly to the same object, the measurements produced should be close to one another.  Third, the measurement system should be able to produce accurate and consistent results over the entire range of concern.  Fourth, the measurement system should produce the same results when used by any properly trained individual.  Finally, when applied to the same items the measurement system should produce the same results in the future as it did in the past.

Lesson 10: Analyze Phase

In this lesson, we will develop an understanding of the key objectives of the Analyze phase, including:

• For existing processes, analyze the value stream to identify ways to eliminate the gap between the current performance and the desired performance.
• Analyze the sources of variation that contribute to the gap (for DMAIC) or that will contribute to the design performance (for DMADV).
• Determine the drivers, the little x’s that correlate to the customer requirements (CFQ, CFS, CFC) and significantly influence the process or design.
• Use benchmarking techniques described in Chap. 3 to evaluate best in class or similar products or services.

Lesson 11: The Improve/Design Phase

The primary objective of the Improve or Design stage of DMAIC/DMADV is to implement the new system. The first consideration is to prioritize the various opportunities, if more than one proposal exists. Once a preferred approach has been determined, the new process or product design is defined and optimal settings established. This new design can then be evaluated for risks and potential failure modes.

Lesson 12: The Control/Verify Phase

In this lesson we will discuss the main objectives of the Control/Verify stage, including:

• Statistically validate that the new process or design meets the objectives and benefits sought through the project
• Develop and implement a control plan to institutionalize the new process or design
• Document lessons learned and project findings, as discussed in the “Tracking Six Sigma Project Results” section of Lesson 4

Six Sigma Black Belt Certification Prep Curriculum:

Lesson 1: The Six Sigma Management System

This lesson focuses on the extension of Six Sigma into a management system that encompasses all levels of an organization. While implementing Six Sigma through individual projects has produced significant results in many organizations, sustainable, breakthrough improvements are realized by those organizations whose leadership has embraced Six Sigma and incorporated it into their vision, strategies, and business objectives - in short, adopted Six Sigma as the system for managing their organizations. The Six Sigma Management System enables a leadership team to align on their strategic objectives, establish their critical operational measures, and determine their organizational performance drivers and then use those to implement, drive, monitor, and sustain their Six Sigma effort. Six Sigma has been labeled as a metric, a methodology, and now, a management system. While Green Belts, Black Belts, Master Black Belts, Champions and Sponsors have all had training on Six Sigma as a metric and as a methodology, few have had exposure to Six Sigma as an overall management system. Reviewing the metric and the methodology will help create a context for beginning to understand Six Sigma as a management system.

Lesson 2: Six Sigma and Lean

Many different approaches have been taken to improve business performance over the last several decades. Like anything in life, each approach has its own set of strengths and weaknesses. Each one also offers a slightly different perspective on how to improve performance. Some of these different perspectives may be beneficial to organizations trying to implement broad based improvement efforts.

Lesson 3: Process Improvement Teams and Tools

When an organization adopts the Six Sigma Management System as their business process improvement model, it becomes an umbrella business strategy that should include a variety of team-based initiatives. The purpose of this lesson is to address various team approaches that have been proven to be successful as part of a Six Sigma system, to present management's varying roles and responsibilities with each team approach, and to illustrate the common tools used by teams to implement improvements and types of measurements that drive performance.

Lesson 4: Six Sigma Teams, Methodology and Tools

This lesson is dedicated to the power of Six Sigma teams that apply a deeper level of analysis and statistical rigor to reduce variation, stabilize and optimize business processes - all for the purpose of bottom-line impact for the organization.

Lesson 5: Six Sigma Impact Measurement

This lesson focuses on measuring the results of a Six Sigma campaign. It will first review the importance of metrics and measurement to all improvement activities. Then it will focus on the need to have a selected, few critical strategic metrics to drive the Six Sigma campaign. It will discuss some historical difficulties with metrics and improvement campaigns, and suggest guidelines for selecting meaningful metrics and goals for organizational performance improvement. The discussion will not be limited to financial goals and metrics. Business objectives that drive Six Sigma Campaigns must be multifaceted.

Lesson 6: Supplemental Information

This lesson will provide supplemental information on two specific topics: Innovation and Measurement System Analysis. Achieving a dramatic improvement is a defining attribute of Six Sigma. Without realizing an innovative or breakthrough solution, one misses the main tenet of Six Sigma and lessens the opportunity to succeed. Six Sigma implies lots of improvement very fast. Incremental improvements are not sufficient to achieve Six Sigma performance. It is not just the current performance; instead, the rate of improvement equally matters. The power of Six Sigma lies in its disciplined, structured approach to identifying and solving process issues. The biggest potential pitfall of the Six Sigma approach is failing to adhere to that discipline. It is in the area of Measurement System Analysis (MSA) that discipline often falls by the wayside. When considering measurements for non-manufacturing processes, MSA often becomes the most neglected step.

All necessary materials are included.

 

System Requirements:

Internet Connectivity Requirements:

• Cable and DSL internet connections are recommended for the best experience.

Hardware Requirements:

• CPU: 1 GHz or higher
• RAM: 2 GB or higher
• Resolution: 1280 x 720 or higher
• Speakers / Headphones
• Microphone (Webinar / Live Online sessions)

Operating System Requirements:

• Microsoft Windows 7 or 10 (Home, Pro)
• Mac OSX 10 or higher.
• Latest Chrome OS
• Latest Linux Distributions

NOTE: While we understand that our courses can be viewed on Android and iPhone devices, we do not recommend the use of these devices for our courses. The size of these devices do not provide a good learning environment for students taking online or live online based courses.

 Web Browser Requirements:

• Latest Google Chrome is recommended for the best experience.
• Latest Mozilla FireFox
• Latest Microsoft Edge
• Latest Apple Safari

Basic Software Requirements (These are recommendations of software to use):

• Office suite software (Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, or LibreOffice)
• PDF reader program (Adobe Reader, FoxIt)
• Courses may require other software that is denoted in the above course outline.

** The course outlines displayed on this website are subject to change at any time without prior notice. **

 

Disclaimer

Flagler College is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges to award Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Fine Arts, and Master of Arts degrees.  Non-degree, non-credit training and development programs are not accredited by SACS Commission on Colleges, and the accreditation of Flagler College does not extend to or include these programs or its students.  Flagler College does not accept course work from these programs for credit toward any award.