Epstein Industrial and Systems Engineering
Viterbi School of Engineering
Syllabus – ISE507: Six Sigma for Health Care
Spring 2010, Friday, 5:00pm – 7:30pm
Instructor
Dr. Maria Lee, William Lee
Phone
Office
Classroom
E-mail
Office Hours
7:30-8:30
818.813.3268; 818.813.3269
mjg@alum.mit.edu, goallee@gmail.com
Course Description:
This course presents Six Sigma and Lean metrics, methods and systems with emphasis on their application to Health Care
services.
The course will comprise interactive classroom lectures, text and special topic reading, individual research, homework
assignments and team presentations. By completing this course, the student will:

Understand how to apply Six Sigma and Lean tools to achieve higher quality and greater speed in Health Care
Processes

Understand the Six Sigma DMAIC processes and tools at a fundamental level

Understand the roles and approaches for Lean and Six Sigma implementation in Health Care

Understand basic Lean and Design for Six Sigma tools and concepts
Why Six Sigma for Health Care?
Six Sigma is a flexible, data-driven management system for achieving, sustaining and maximizing business success. Six Sigma
is also a family of tools and methodologies for defining, improving efficiencies and reducing defects in any business, including
Health Care.
Empirical data have shown that the costs of Health Care services are inflated by 30-80% waste. In other words, processes in
Health Care include activities that add no value to the customer. Health Care services have little or no history using data and
systematic approaches to process improvement. Moreover, change control and documentation is missing in many Health Care
organizations, making it difficult to determine process baselines and to ensure permanence of process improvement. Together
with Lean Principles, Six Sigma represents a great opportunity for improving quality and speed in the delivery of Health Care
Services.
Materials:
Course texts: Lean Six Sigma for Service, Michael L. George, 1st Edition, 2003; Implementing Six Sigma: Smarter Solutions
Using Statistical Methods, Second Edition by F. W. Breyfogle III, 2nd Edition, 2003.
Reference materials: Design and Analysis of Experiments by D. C. Montgomery, 6th Edition, 2004; The Six Sigma Black Belt
Handbook (Six Sigma Operational Methods) by T. McCarty, L. Daniels, M. Bremer, P. Gupta, 1st Edition, 2005.
Software: Excel Data Analysis Tools.
Website:
Students access the assignments, lecture notes, team rosters and other class materials from http://den.usc.edu.
Assignments:
Beginning on lecture 2, individuals of teams of 2-3 persons will give 10 min presentations on pre-assigned topics or problems.
The content of the presentations must be submitted in electronic form for evaluation on the day that the presentations are due.
Off campus students are expected to present using DEN tools.
Syllabus ISE 507
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Epstein Industrial and Systems Engineering
Viterbi School of Engineering
Grading:
The following breakdown of semester activities determines the student’s grade: midterm-20%; final examination-20%;
assignments-50%; and class participation-10%. Assignments are announced in class. Off-campus students must submit their
assignments in time to be received by DEN on the day they are due. Off campus assignments must be submitted as specified in
the DEN guidelines. Assignments may be turned in late for partial credit. Credit decrements will increase 10% with each class
period after the due date. All assignments must be prepared using a word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation graphics
as required.
Final Exam:
The university schedules the final exam date and time. The definitive date will be announced in class.
Academic Integrity:
The Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering adheres to the University’s policies and procedures governing academic
integrity as described in SCampus. Students are expected to be aware of and to observe these academic integrity standards as
they will be strictly enforced throughout the semester.
Disability Services and Programs:
Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability is required to register with Disability Services and
Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be
sure the letter is delivered to me or to the TA as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and is open
8:30am – 5:00pm Monday through Friday. The phone number for DSP is 213.740.0776.
Note: This syllabus is subject to change as announced in class.
Syllabus ISE 507
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Epstein Industrial and Systems Engineering
Viterbi School of Engineering
Course Schedule:
Week
Date
1
01/15/10
2
01/22/10
Resume/Background info due
Assignments 1-3 due
Healthcare process management, inputs, outputs,
stakeholders and relationships between process elements.
VOC and Healthcare performance metrics.
3
01/29/10
Assignments 4-6 due
Road Maps for deploying Six Sigma in the Healthcare
environment; project management tools.
02/05/10
Assignments 7-9 due
Six Sigma Define phase. Project definition, development
02/12/10
Assignments 10-12 due
4
Milestones
Topic
The Healthcare case for Six Sigma. Six Sigma history,
goals and definition; the value of Six Sigma in Healthcare.
of problem statements.
5
Six Sigma Measure phase. Measurement System
Analysis.
6
02/19/10
Assignments 13-15 due
Six Sigma Measure phase. Cause and effect diagrams,
numerical/statistical process description and
characterization of process baseline. Typical opportunities
in the Health Care environment.
7
02/26/10
8
03/05/10
9
03/12/10
Guest Speaker
Midterm
Midterm Exam
Guest Speaker
03/19/10
Spring Recess
Spring Recess
10
03/26/10
Assignments 16-18 due
Six Sigma Analyze phase. Multi-vari studies, correlations.
11
04/02/10
Assignments 19-21 due
Six Sigma Analyze phase. Hypothesis testing, paired
comparisons, ANOVA.
12
04/09/10
Assignments 22-24 due
Six Sigma Improve phase. Design of Experiments.
13
04/16/10
Assignments 25-27 due
Six Sigma Control phase. Statistical Process Control,
Control Charts, Control challenges in Health Care.
14
04/23/10
Assignments 28-30 due
Other Operational Excellence Tools in Health Care.
Lean tools and concepts. CAP, Work-out.
15
04/30/10
Assignments 31-33 due
Design for Six Sigma. New process design, Quality
Function Deployment.
16
05/07/10
Final Exam
Syllabus ISE 507
Final Exam
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Epstein Industrial and Systems Engineering
Viterbi School of Engineering
Assignments
Assignment Name and Description
Due Date
Resume/Background Individual Information, Assignments: VOC, Smart Goals
01/22/10
Assignments: Critical Path, Slack, PERT
02/29/10
Assignments: Project Charter, Communication Plan, COPQ
02/05/10
Assignments: MSA Precision, Accuracy
02/12/10
Assignments: Rolled Throughput Yield, Process Control Cpk
02/19/10
Assignments: Hypothesis Testing, Type I and II Errors
03/26/10
Assignments: SOV and ANOVA
04/02/10
Assignments: FMEA, MultVari Charts
04/09/10
Assignments: Comparing Means and Variances
04/16/10
Assignments: Regression Analysis, Control Charts
04/23/10
Assignments: 5S, Kaizen Events
04/30/10
Syllabus ISE 507
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Epstein Industrial and Systems Engineering
Viterbi School of Engineering
ISE507, Spring 2009 – Six Sigma for Health Care
Study Guide
I. Introduction to 6σ
A. 6σ and the Health Care Organization
1. Why Healthcare?
2. Six Sigma: a metric, a method, a business management tool
B. Leadership
1. Enterprise leadership
2. Six sigma roles and responsibilities
C. Change agent
1. Managing change
2. Organizational roadblocks
3. Negotiation and conflict resolution techniques
4. Motivation techniques
5. Communication
D. Organizational goals and objectives
1. Linking projects to organizational goals
E. History of organizational improvement/foundations of six sigma
II. Business Process Management
A. Process vs. functional view
1. Process elements
B. Voice of the customer
1. Identify customer.
2. Collect customer data
3. Analyze customer data
4. Determine critical customer requirements
C. Business results
1. Process performance metrics
2. Financial benefits
III. Project Management
A. Project management and benefits
B. Project charter and plan
1. Charter and plan elements
2. Planning tools
3. Project documentation
4. Charter negotiation
C. Team leadership
1. Initiating teams
2. Selecting team members
3. Team stages
D. Team dynamics and performance
1. Team-building techniques
2. Team facilitation techniques
3. Team performance evaluation
4. Team tools
5. Risk analysis
6. Closed-loop assessment / knowledge management
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Epstein Industrial and Systems Engineering
Viterbi School of Engineering
E. Management and planning Tools
IV. Overview of 6σ Methodologies
A. Improvement
B. Development
C. Efficiency
V. Six Sigma Improvement Methodology and Tools – Define
A. Project scope
B. Metrics
C. Problem statement
VI. Six Sigma Improvement Methodology and Tools – Measure
A. Process analysis and documentation
1. Tools
2. Process inputs and outputs
B. Probability and statistics
1. Drawing valid statistical conclusions
2. Central limit theorem and sampling distribution of the mean
3. Basic probability concepts
C. Collecting and summarizing data
1. Types of data
2. Measurement scales
3. Methods for collecting data
4. Techniques for assuring data accuracy and integrity
5. Descriptive statistics
6. Graphical methods
D. Properties and applications of probability distributions
1. Distributions commonly used by black belts
2. Other distributions
E. Measurement systems
1. Measurement methods
2. Measurement system analysis
3. Metrology
F. Analyzing process capability
1. Designing and conducting process capability studies
2. Calculating process performance vs. specification
3. Process capability indices
4. Process performance indices
5. Short-term vs. long-term capability
6. Non-normal data transformations (process capability for non-normal data)
7. Process capability for attributes data
VII. Six Sigma Improvement Methodology and Tools – Analyze
A. Exploratory data analysis
1. Multi-variable studies
2. Measuring and modeling relationships between variables
a. Simple and multiple least-squares linear regression
b. Simple linear correlation
c. Diagnostics
B. Hypothesis testing
1. Fundamental concepts of hypothesis testing
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Epstein Industrial and Systems Engineering
Viterbi School of Engineering
a. Statistical vs. practical significance
b. Significance level, power, type I and type II errors
c. Sample Size
2. Point and interval estimation
3. Tests for means, variances, and proportions
4. Paired-comparison tests
5. Goodness-of-fit tests
6. Analysis of variance (ANOVA)
7. Contingency tables
8. Non-parametric tests
VIII. Six Sigma Improvement Methodology and Tools – Improve
A. Design of experiments (DOE)
1. Terminology
2. Planning and organizing experiments
3. Design principles
IX. Six Sigma Improvement Methodology and Tools – Control
A. Statistical process control (SPC)
1. Objectives and benefits
2. Selection of variable
3. Rational sub grouping
4. Selection and application of control charts
5. Analysis of control charts
6. PRE-control
B. Advanced statistical process control
C. Lean tools for control
D. Measurement system re-analysis
X. Lean Enterprise
A. Lean concepts
1. Theory of constraints
2. Lean thinking
3. 4. Non-value-added activities
5. Cycle-time reduction
B. Lean tools
C. Total productive maintenance (TPM)
XI. Design for Six Sigma (DFSS)
A. Quality function deployment (QFD)
B. Robust design and process
1. Functional requirements
2. Noise strategies
3. Tolerance design
4. Tolerance and process capability
C. Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA)
D. Design for X (DFX)
E. Special design tools
Syllabus ISE 507
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