Supply Chain Management

SCM 4367 | MAKE/PROCESS

Process and Quality Management

Course Purpose

Within this course, students utilize Lean, Six Sigma, and change management tools, techniques, and principles to create scalable business processes that are agile and resilient. Lean and Six Sigma are world-class methodologies used to improve, manage, and transform business processes. Skills within these areas are in high demand for Bauer SCM graduates. Global companies pursue hiring our students for the expert process improvement and management skills they demonstrate.

Successful business operation involves coordinating the efforts of a variety of people toward common goals. As organizations grow and develop, the complexity of the way work gets done tends to increase. As a result, managers are increasingly challenged to make decisions that have the highest probability of achieving desired results. During this course, students will learn to manage the operating capabilities of a variety of organizations within both service and manufacturing environments through the utilization of process design, measurement, analysis, and improvement techniques from a systems perspective. Through a combination of lectures, in-class exercises, case studies, demonstrations, simulations, and out-of-class assignments, students will practice managing and facilitating the improvement of quality and process effectiveness.

Expected Learning Objectives

• Define and recognize the key characteristics of a business process
• Utilize Lean, Six Sigma, and Theory of Constraints concepts concurrently
• Understand the role of management for facilitating process improvement
• Be able to influence the behaviors and attitudes contributing to organizational culture
• Evaluate the causal interconnections within a process
• Create and design processes that are resilient and agile
• Communicate process analysis, plans, and results logically and concisely
• Account for process variability when evaluating a process
• Utilize statistical analysis in addressing quality and reducing variation
• Utilize analytical process improvement tools within a variety of business situations
• Analyze business processes from a systems perspective
• Utilize process analysis methods for prioritizing and developing process improvements
• Be able to lead and manage a process improvement initiatives that are scalable

Selection of Topics Covered:

• Defining and Understanding Processes
• Scientific Thinking and Scientific Problem Solving
• Organism Viewpoint and Business Culture Development
• History of Process Improvement
• Process waste identification, management, and evaluation tools
• Layout design for flow, efficiency, and resource utilization
• Visual Workplace, Work Standardization, and Process Documentation
• Job Training and Instruction
• Value Stream Analysis and Just in Time
• Quality Management Tools and Techniques
• Root Cause Analysis Methods and Structured Problem Solving
• Statistical Process Control and Process Behavior Charts
• Statistical Process Evaluation
• Structured Group Decision-Making
• Kaizen and Setup Reduction Techniques
• Process Data Analysis and Evaluation

Course Pedagogy and Immersive/Experiential Activities

Process and Quality Improvement and Management requires extensive hands-on experience. This course has been designed to allow students opportunities to practice the tools and techniques in practical ways within nearly every classroom experience.

Students are provided with course notes, industry resource books, and lecture resources. Extensive practice problems are provided to students for every mathematical concept covered in the course. Multiple video examples of course concepts from real business processes are provided for each course module to provide students with a “bank” of process situations within which students are expected to obtain vicarious experience.

Then, throughout the course, a series of 19 immersive, intensive, in-person experiences where students can practice applying course concepts within randomized, dynamic, and live simulations, demonstrations, and replicated business processes. These experiences are designed to be exciting, memorable, and widely applicable. For sessions where individual students are unable to attend the in-person experience, similar at-home and industry-based experiences have been designed to give students this experiential learning.

During the course, students are introduced to industry professionals who are currently pursuing and utilizing the tools, materials, concepts, and principles taught in the course.

Grades are typically determined by performance in a series of Quizzes that progressively cover the course material, attendance and participation in the immersive classroom experiences, and two exams.