SPC and Continuous Improvement

Course Overview

The Pyzdek SPC and Continuous Improvement workshop is a 100% hands-on workshop with no lecture, no PowerPoint slides and no theory. It is designed to rapidly harness the power of process behavior charts to solve difficult process problems, gain new knowledge and maintain process stability. In addition, the course provides guidance on Process Capability Analysis, insight on common SPC myths and advice to avoid common SPC pitfalls.

Blending Lean Principles and SPC, this Pyzdek Institute workshop follows an error-proofed, systematic approach to either set up a new SPC system from scratch or to improve an existing SPC system. The workflow answers a long list of practical SPC-related “how-to” questions (see below).

The workshops can be held using a recent version of Minitab, JMP or SigmaXL and in all cases the content is suitable to the healthcare, plastics, food processing, machining, aerospace, automotive, electronics and other industries.

Pre-requisites

The course requires a basic understanding of statistical software fundamentals including navigation, menu structure, data integrity, annotations, data visualizations and similar.

• Attendees must have a PC with a recent statistical software installed and activated.
• Two-way headset.
• Two monitors recommended but not required.

Designed for:

Supervisors, Managers, Technicians, Engineers, and Healthcare Professionals.

Benefits to attendees

Specific benefits to attendees include:

• Detect process problems before disaster strikes
• Gain new process knowledge
• Avoid common SPC pitfalls
• Analyze SPC data and interpret results in group discussion
• Learn many useful statistical principles
• Improve return on statistical software investment
• Contribute to Operational Excellence, supplier management and bottom-line profit
• Run better, more cost-effective designed experiments

Course structure

Specific topics covered

• Why are control charts the foundation of continuous improvement?
• How do I get started with SPC?
• How does a control chart help us listen to the Voice of the Process?
• How do I know what type of control chart to use?
• How do I know how much data to collect?
• Do I need normally distributed data for control charts?
• How do I form rational subgroups?
• Where do the limits come from? (a pencil & paper exercise)
• How much data do I need for meaningful limits?
• How do I interpret a control chart?
• How do I control chart attribute data?
• How do I handle short process runs?
• How do I handle rare events, like safety incidents, with a control chart?
• How do I time-weight a control chart?
• Can I control chart combines variables? (JMP, Minitab only)
• How do I measure process capability to meet targets?

Schedule options

The Pyzdek Institute’s SPC and Continuous Improvement course is also available for groups. Whether you are looking for online or onsite training, we are pleased to accommodate your needs and customize the course to your organization.

• Six 4-hour sessions for online (recommended) with sessions spread over a few weeks to allow attendees to collect data, present it during the sessions, etc.
• Three 8-hour sessions for at-site