By the end of this week you should be able to:
- Summarize process data with descriptive statistics.
- Interpret a simple control chart.
These lecture notes will be written from the instructor’s Week 7 draft. The topics below are a working outline.
Planned topics
- Control chart — A time-ordered plot of a process measurement with statistically calculated control limits used to distinguish common-cause from special-cause variation.
- Descriptive statistics — Numerical and graphical summaries of data, such as the mean, median, standard deviation, and histogram.
- DMAIC — The Six Sigma improvement cycle of Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control.
- Quality — The degree to which a product or service meets customer requirements and is free of defects.
- Six Sigma — A data-driven improvement methodology that aims to reduce defects to about 3.4 per million opportunities, typically following the DMAIC cycle.
- Statistical process control — The use of statistical methods, especially control charts, to monitor a process and detect when it changes.
- Variation — The natural differences among outputs of a process; reducing unwanted variation is a central goal of quality engineering.