Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Curriculum

1.1: Understand leadership
responsibilities in the
deployment of Six Sigma:

• Providing resources
• Managing change
• Communicating ideas

1. Describe the responsibilities of executive leaders and how they affect the deployment of Six Sigma in terms of providing resources, managing change, communicating ideas, etc.
2. Describe and use various techniques for facilitating and managing organizational change.

1.2: Describe and identify
organizational roadblocks:

• Lack of resources
• Management support
• Recovery techniques
• Change managementtechniques

1.3: Use team formation theories:

• Team types and constraints
• Team roles
• Team member selection
• Launching teams

1. Describe and apply techniques that motivate team members and support and sustain their participation and commitment.
2. Facilitate the team through the classic stages of development: forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning

2.1: Define benchmarking, performance and financial measures:

• Best practice
• Competitive
• Collaborative
• Score cards
• KPI’s
• COQ
• ROI
• NPV

1. Define and distinguish between various types of benchmarking, including best practices, competitive, collaborative, etc. Business performance measures
2. Define various business performance measures, including balanced scorecard, key performance indicators (KPIs), the financial impact of customer loyalty, etc.
3. Define financial measures, such as: revenue growth, market share, margin, cost of quality (COQ), net present value (NPV), return on investment (ROI), cost-benefit analysis, etc.

2.4: Collect customer data using various methods:

• Surveys
• Focus groups
• Interviews observations

3.1: Understand team facilitation:

• Team motivation
• Team stages
• Team communication
• Team Dynamics

1. Identify and use appropriate communication methods (both within the team and from the team to various stakeholders) to report progress, conduct milestone reviews and support the overall success of the project.
2. Identify and use various techniques (e.g., coaching, mentoring, intervention, etc.) to overcome various group dynamic challenges, including overbearing/dominant or reluctant participants, feuding and other forms of unproductive disagreement, unquestioned acceptance of opinions as facts, groupthink, floundering, rushing to accomplish or finish, digressions, tangents, etc.

3.3: Analyze customer data using various methods:

• Graphical
• Statistical
• Qualitative tools

1. Use graphical, statistical, and qualitative tools to analyze customer feedback.
2. Assist in translating customer feedback into project goals and objectives, including critical to quality (CTQ) attributes and requirements statements.

Outline steps taken that address issues identified at analysis, discussing:

• Stakeholder management
• Communications plans
• Organizational readiness for change

4.3: Identify customers:

• Identify customers
• Classify customers

5.1: Outline process
elements:

• Components
• Boundaries

5.2: Identify owners and
stakeholders:

• Process owners
• Suppliers
• Internal customers
• External customers

5.3: Analyze customer data using various methods:

• Graphical
• Statistical
• Qualitative tools

5.4: Outline the project charter and project statement:

• Project elements
• Problem statement

5.5: Develop the project
scope using:

• Definitions
• Pareto charts
• Process maps

5.6: Develop the project metrics using:

• Primary metrics
• Consequential metrics
• Key project metrics

5.7: Apply project planning
tools:

• Ghantt charts
• CPM
• Pert

5.8: Record project
documentation:

• Spreadsheets
• Story boards

5.9: Define and utilize project risk analysis:

• Purpose
• Benefits
• Impacts

5.10: Project milestones:

• Objectives vs outcomes
• Lessons learned
• Opportunities

1. Describe the objectives achieved and apply the lessons learned to identify
   additional opportunities.
2. Present findings in a clear, concise manner.

1. Calculate process performance metrics such as defects per unit (DPU), rolled throughput yield (RTY), cost of poor quality (COPQ), defects per million opportunities (DPMO) sigma levels and process capability indices.
2. Track process performance measures to drive project decisions.

6.1 Define and describe measurement and metrology:

• Continuous data
• Discrete data
• Elements of metrology
• Calibration
• Traceability to reference standards
• Standards and measurement devices

1. Define and describe measurement methods for both continuous and discrete data.
2. Define and describe elements of metrology, including calibration systems,
   traceability to reference standards, the control, and integrity of standards and measurement devices, etc.

6.3: Describe and apply basic probability concepts:

• Independence
• Mutually exclusive
• Multiplication rules

7.1: Undertake hypothesis testing:

• Basics
• Tests for means, variances, and
  proportions
• Paired-comparison tests
• Single-factor analysis of variance (ANOVA)
• Chi-square

1. Define and distinguish between statistical and practical significance and apply tests for a significance level, power, type I, and type II errors. Determine the appropriate sample size for the various tests.
2. Define and describe paired-comparison parametric hypothesis tests.
3. Define terms related to one-way ANOVAs and interpret their results and data plots.
4. Define and interpret chi-square and use it to determine statistical significance.

1. Recognition of non-normal data.
2. Select, develop and use various non-parametric tests, including Mood’s
   Median, Levene’s test, Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney, etc.

7.4: Use various tools and techniques to analyze data:

• Gap analysis
• Root cause analysis
• Waste analysis

1. Use various tools and techniques (gap analysis, scenario planning, etc.) to
   compare the current and future state in terms of pre-defined metrics.
2. Define and describe the purpose of root cause analysis, recognize the issues involved in identifying a root cause, and use various tools (e.g., the 5 whys, Pareto charts, fault tree analysis, cause and effect diagrams, etc.) for resolving chronic problems.
3. Identify the 7 classic wastes (overproduction, inventory, defects, overprocessing, waiting, motion and transportation) and other forms of waste such as resource under-utilization, etc.

8.1: Define and Describe the Design of Experiments (DOE):

• Basic terms
• Main effects
• Design principles
• Planning experiments
• One-factor experiments
• Two-level fractional factorial experiments
• Full factorial experiments

1. Define and describe basic DOE terms such as independent and dependent
   variables, factors, and levels, response, treatment, error, repetition, and
   replication.
2. Interpret the main effects and interaction plots.
3. Apply to design the DOE principles, including power and sample size,
   balance, repetition, replication, order, efficiency, randomization, blocking,
   interaction, confounding, resolution, etc.
4. Plan, organize and evaluate experiments by determining the objective,
   selecting factors, responses, and measurement methods, choosing the
   appropriate design, etc.
5. Design and conduct completely randomized, randomized block and Latin
   square designs and evaluate their results.
6. Design, analyze and interpret these types of experiments and describe how
   confounding affects its use.
7. Design, conduct and analyze full factorial experiments

8.2: Select and apply various reduction, elimination and mitigation tools:

• Waste elimination
• Cycle-time reduction
• Kaizen and kaizen blitz
• Risk analysis

1. Select and apply tools and techniques for eliminating or preventing waste,
   including pull systems, kanban, 5S, standard work, poka-yoke, etc
2. Use various tools and techniques for reducing cycle time, including
   continuous flow, single-minute exchange of die (SMED), etc
3. Define and distinguish between these two methods and apply them in various situations.
4. Use tools such as feasibility studies, SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses,
   opportunities and threats), PEST analysis (political, environmental, social and
   technological) and consequential metrics to analyze and mitigate risk.

Performance Criteria

 9.1: Using other tools for control and maintenance:

• TPM
• Visual factory
• Measurement system reanalysis
• Control plan

1.  Define the elements of TPM and describe how it can be used to control the
   improved process.
2. Define the elements of a visual factory and describe how they can help
   control the improved process.
3. Review and evaluate measurement system capability as process capability
   improves, and ensures that measurement capability is sufficient for its intended use.

9.2: Understanding how to sustain improvements:

• Lessons learned
• Training plan deployment
• Documentation
• Ongoing evaluation

1. Develop a control plan for ensuring the ongoing success of the improved
   the process including the transfer of responsibility from the project team to the
   process owner.
2. Document the lessons learned from all phases of a project and identify how
   improvements can be replicated and applied to other processes in the
   organization
3. Develop and implement training plans to ensure continued support of the
   improved process.
4. Develop or modify documents including standard operating procedures
   (SOPs), work instructions, etc., to ensure that the improvements are
   sustained over time.
5. 5Identify and apply tools for ongoing evaluation of the improved process,
   including monitoring for new constraints, additional opportunities for
   improvement, etc