While brainstorming is a widely accepted technique in the business world, it’s absolutely crucial when using Lean Six Sigma. Project team leaders with expertise in how to apply Lean Six …

A business case is one of the major components of the project charter. The other two major components include the problem statement and the project scope. The business case describes, …

As mentioned in the course, there are two ways to make a bad part, or to make for an unhappy customer experience when dealing with continuous data. Either the process variation centering is off, or the dispersion (fatness, or slop in the process) is too wide. A capability study will tell you with two numbers represented by either Cp Cpk, or Pp Ppk whether your process is capable of meeting customer requirements in either the short term or the longer-term.

The capability ratio is the inverse of the Cp index. Remember that the Cp index is the specification spread divided by the process spread of six standard deviations. Flip that formula around and you would be dividing the process spread by the specification spread. In the case of a capability ratio, you would be looking for a smaller-is-better characteristic. With the Cp index, you are looking for a larger-is-better characteristic.

The c chart is used when the data can only be whole numbers, as in counting, it is known as attribute, or discrete data. Every item in the sample is …

A cause/effect diagram was first known by the name fishbone diagram because it looks like the skeleton of a fish. It was first made popular by Dr. Ishikawa back in the late 1970s and early 80s. Usually the cause/effect diagram is drawn on a large whiteboard or a large flipchart. The effect is usually written at the 3 o’clock position. A horizontal line divides the whiteboard into two equal parts.

A project charter is a document that contains the basic elements (i.e., business case, problem statement, and scope) of the improvement project and answers the following questions:

1. The business case describes what the project does, how it impacts the strategic business objectives, is used as a motivational tool that describes why the project is worth doing, and it explains the consequences of not doing the project.

2. The problem statement is specific and measurable (quantifiable). It is an indication of how long the problem has existed, describes the impact to the organization, and describes the gap between the current state and the desired state.

3. The scope defines what the team is going to focus their process improvement efforts on, and it will identify those things that are out of scope so that the team doesn’t creep toward areas that are beyond the initial intent of the project.

Let’s start with what an alias is. An alias when employing the use of a designed experiments methodology is the pattern of pluses (+) and minuses (-) into columns are identical. For example, a main effect is aliased with a two-factor interaction. During the analysis, it is impossible to know whether a change is due to a main effect or due to an interaction since the columns are identical. Confounding is similar, but it doesn’t mean 100% overlap with the pattern of pluses and minuses in the columns. Perhaps the column might be 80 percent confounded, or 90 percent confounded. It would be better if there was no confounding as far as resolution is concerned.

Continuous data can be measured on a continuum. Think of it as being able to divide a measure by one half, and in half again, and in half again, – to infinity. Contrast continuous data with discrete/attribute data that is binary, or two-state — pass/fail, go/no go, good/bad, and so on.

Common-cause variation is where no one, or combination of factors is unduly affected the process variation (random variation). Special-cause variation is when one or more factors are affecting the process variation in a non-random way. With special-cause variation, one should be able to identify, or put their finger on the reason behind the unexpected variation.