IEM 5103 Breakthrough Quality 
3 credit hours

Catalog description:  Structured systematic approach and advanced statistical and modeling tools to achieve breakthrough improvement across all areas of an enterprise.  Rigorous application, integration, and betterment of strategies and tools for improving or redesigning products and processes such that performance gains are noticeably higher or quicker than those achieved under traditional improvement approaches.

Brief “friendly” description:  Improving products and processes through the use of Six Sigma.

 Text (not a regular textbook): Breyfogle, Forrest W. III, Implementing Six Sigma: Smarter Solutions Using Statistical Methods, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., New York, 1999, ISBN 0-471-29659-7

 Prerequisites:  IEM 4103 Industrial Quality Control (really Statistical Process Control) and IEM 4113 Industrial Experimentation (really Applied Designed Experimentation) or equivalent.  Each of these courses has STAT 4033 (Engineering Statistics) as a prerequisite.

Brief “unfriendly” prerequisites:  (1) A good statistics background and lack of statistical fear, (2) a decent course in statistical process control (variables and attributes control charting, process capability, stratification concepts), and (3) a decent introduction to 2- and 3-level designs used in industry (such as full and fractional factorials, central composite designs, Taguchi screening designs, and basic analysis of variance using a software such as DOE KISS or Minitab).

Additional prerequisite:  You need to be bright, hard working, and have a propensity for reading carefully and actually thinking.  You need to be brighter than the instructor.  You need to focus on learning and worry about your grade after the semester is over and the instructor is gone for the summer.

Additional note:  KEC really does not want too many in the class.  It is the first time it has been offered and it will be rough around the edges.  The timid among you need not apply. 

Screening experiment:  I may begin the semester with tests on the first day examining the basics of (1) stat, (2) SPC, and (3) DOE / ANOVA.  Those who have taken the relevant class from KEC or OSU’s statistics department will not have to take that portion of the tests.  Those not measuring up will be deemed to not have the prerequisites and will be required to leave the course.  Tapes of IEM 4103 and IEM 4113 will be available in the OSU library.

More:  We’ll move quickly – there are 43 chapters in the book, some of which you will just read and dig out on your own.  You may get a chance to present some of the material. 

Still interested?  If so, you may be delusional.  Or, you may actually be qualified.  If the latter, welcome!

Spring 05 Registration Information:
Instructor: Case
Dates: Monday, Wednesday, Friday - January 10 - May 6 
Book Information