TARGETED MODULES
HALF TO TWO-DAY SESSIONS
On-site sessions customized to fit your needs; featured topics include DMAIC Overview, Control Charts, Process Mapping, Root Cause Analysis, Lean Inventory Systems, and various best practices.
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All courses are taught by our experienced team of Master Black Belts and offer a blend of classroom and experiential learning.
DMAIC: A Systematic Approach to Change
The DMAIC process is data-driven and customer focused, employing a variety of visual and analytical tools to collaboratively engage employees in problem solving. This course serves as an introduction to the DMAIC process, a systematic approach to driving sustainable change.
Lean Fundamentals
A lean system emphasizes prevention of waste, which is anything that does not add value to a product or service. Lean principles were developed from the Toyota Production System and focus on what brings value to the customer. This course will introduce the fundamentals of lean techniques and how they can decrease cycle times, reduce costs, improve productivity, and eliminate waste. Course topics include 5S, visual controls, value steam mapping, total productive manufacturing, inventory systems, resource leveling, standardized work, and SMED (Single Minute Exchange of Die).
Selecting and Prioritizing Solutions
Given a problem with a verified root cause, students will learn various collaborative techniques to generate and prioritize creative solutions. For a solution to be successful, it must be evaluated from a technical perspective and a people perspective. The technical side of solution evaluation includes cost, potential benefits, ease of implementation, potential side effects, and verification that the solution addresses a root cause. The people side of change is a critical aspect of solution implementation, which is often overlooked. Course topics include brainstorming, necessity feasibility grids, prioritization matrices, stakeholder analysis and communication plans, and RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted, informed) matrices.
Process Mapping and Root Cause Analysis
Every business, department, or workgroup operates as a series of dependent and independent processes. When designed improperly, managed poorly, or operationally siloed; a process can become inefficient and product output quality can suffer. Students will learn visual and collaborative techniques to document existing processes, identify key failure modes and waste drivers, determine root cause, and redesign processes to maximize value. Course topics include bottlenecks, process flow, 8 Wastes, causal trees, and failure modes and effects analysis.
Control Charts I
Control Charts offer a visual and statistical representation of how a process is functioning, allowing process owners to make informed decisions to drive sustainable process improvement. Students will learn to decipher time-ordered data, focusing on the two types of variation, common and special cause. Students will gain a working knowledge of the most common form of a control chart, the Individuals chart. Course topics include normal theory, special cause signals, detecting process shifts and runs, corrective action, and distribution technique.
Control Charts II
Students will learn advanced techniques for analyzing non-normal time-ordered data using control charts. The course teaches students how to analyze data distribution, effectively transform non-normal data, and fit the data to the appropriate non-normal control chart. Course topics include Central Limit Theorem, distribution parameters and fit tests, Box Cox analysis, power and logarithmic transformations, and subgroup sampling..
Lean Inventory Systems
Inventory is one of the most expensive investments companies make, but necessary to satisfy customer demand and process requirements. Proper inventory management can return 25%-50% of inventory value directly to your cash account without sacrificing service level. Students will learn to design and optimize lean inventory systems that minimize inventory cost and quantity, reduce working capital, and create flexibility. Course topics include trigger-based Kanban inventory systems, time-based Supermarket inventory systems, hybrid inventory systems, ABC analysis, Reorder Point (ROP), Economic Order Quantity (EOQ), and service level optimization.
Communicating for Leadership Success
Organizations need leaders who can do more and be more in order to succeed in today's complex environment. They need frontline leaders with strong interpersonal skills who can get things done by mobilizing and engaging others. This foundation course helps leaders communicate effectively so they can spark action in others. The course teaches leaders the Interaction Essentials they need to handle the variety of challenges and opportunities they encounter every day in the workplace and beyond.
Driving Change
In today’s complex and competitive environment, it’s no surprise that 70 percent of workplace change initiatives fail. For workplace change initiatives to be successful, organizations need leaders who are able to turn resistance into commitment and inspire team members to take ownership of change. This course provides the skills and resources leaders need to accelerate the process of implementing change with their team members and to create an agile work environment where people are more open to change.
Executing Strategy at the Front Line
In order to achieve their business strategies, organizations count on leaders at the frontline to understand and execute the top priorities for their team. In this course, leaders will learn the three key elements of executing strategy at the front line: Focus, Measurement, and Accountability. They learn how to focus on the few most critical priorities, to measure progress toward the accomplishment of these priorities, and to hold themselves and their team members accountable against the metrics. Participants will also explore best practices for accountability, such as determining and communicating accountability—including consequences. The Strategy Execution Tool helps leaders capture in one place their top priorities, progress and outcome measures, and those accountable for achieving the priorities. Using the three elements of execution ensures that leaders and their teams get the right things done, in spite of daily distractions.
Coaching for Peak Performance
Effective coaching is one of the most important drivers of team member performance. Whether leaders are guiding people toward success in new or challenging situations or helping people improve or enhance their work performance, their ability to coach and provide feedback makes the difference between mediocrity and high performance. By helping learners understand the importance of three coaching techniques and how to effectively handle both proactive and reactive coaching discussions, this course helps leaders have more effective and efficient interactions.
Regression Analysis and Hypothesis Testing
Students will learn advanced techniques for determining process changes signals and comparing like processes. The course teaches students how to perform regressions and various hypothesis testing analyses, interpret the results, optimize the analysis to fit the underlying data, quantify relationships between variables, and predict future outcomes. Course topics include linear regression, normal theory, Ordinary Least Squares, t-tests, ANOVA and ANOM techniques, Chi-Square, Test for Equal Variance, multiple linear regression, residual analysis, Type I/II errors, and prediction intervals.
Lean 5S Systems
5S Training will help the employee with implementing one of the most important Lean manufacturing tools; 5S. 5S is a methodical way to organize your workplace to turn it into a safer, ergonomic, more efficient environment through organizing your layout and introducing visual management and standard ways of working. 5S is a team approach and requires the participation of everyone within the area in which it is applied to be effective. 5S works by helping the team to minimize the 8 Wastes and increase value-added process time.
Excel Analytics
Microsoft Excel is the one of the most widely-used analytics tools available today. Leveraging Excel’s analytical abilities, specifically pivot tables and VLOOKUP, to create efficient data analysis can give participants back hours in their day. Students will learn to create and manage pivot tables, VLOOKUPs and pivot charts to improve their Excel efficiency and analytic prowess. Course topics include data layout, pivot tables, VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, shortcut keys, and charts.
