Course abstract

The course on Six Sigma will focus on detailed strategic and operational issues of process improvement and variation reduction called Six Sigma, a measure of quality that strives for near perfection. It is a disciplined, data-driven approach for eliminating defects (driving towards six standard deviations between the mean and the nearest specification limit) in any process-from manufacturing to transactional and from product to service. A Six Sigma defect is anything outside of customer specifications. To be tagged Six Sigma, a process must not produce more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities.

The course will provide an exposure to well-established methods of quality assurance and management and advanced statistical methods including design of experiments.

Six Sigma is recognized as modern quality strategy to compete and sustain in the global markets. The philosophy of Six Sigma is built on two frameworks-DMAIC (define, measure, analyze, improve, control) and DMADV (define, measure, analyze, design, verify). This course will provide a detailed understanding on both the methodologies to the students.

The course intends to cover basic concepts in quality management, TQM, Cost of quality, quality engineering and Six Sigma, review of Probability and Statistics, Test of Hypothesis.

Subsequently, the course will focus on DMAIC process for process and design improvement, Acceptance Sampling, SPC (Statistical Process Control), Process Capability, Gage Reproducibility and Repeatability, Quality Function Deployment.

This will be followed by advanced quality control tools like Design of Experiments, ANOVA, EVOP, Fractional, Full and Orthogonal Experiments, Regression model building, Taguchi methods for robust design, and Six Sigma sustainability.

The course is designed with a practical orientation and includes cases and industry applications of the concepts.