Advanced Quality and Productivity Improvement Training Course

Course overview

Quality failures, rework, long lead times and uneven output rarely stem from a single weak procedure. They arise when variation, bottlenecks, unclear operating standards, poor measurement and local optimisation combine across a process. This advanced five-day course equips operations and quality professionals to diagnose these interconnected causes, quantify their business impact and lead disciplined improvement work. Participants learn to move beyond reporting defects and productivity ratios towards controlling critical process conditions, improving flow and sustaining gains.

The course integrates Lean, Six Sigma and operational excellence methods for complex service, manufacturing and transactional environments. Participants use process capability analysis, statistical process control, value stream mapping, overall equipment effectiveness, constraint analysis, root-cause testing, FMEA and control plans. They practise selecting meaningful quality and productivity measures, interpreting variation with Minitab and Excel, prioritising improvement opportunities with financial evidence, and designing practical countermeasures. Attention is given to ISO 9001:2015 process control requirements and to building visual management routines that make performance visible at team level.

Delivery combines instructor-led technical briefings with guided analysis of realistic operating data, team-based improvement workshops and peer challenge sessions. Each participant works through an end-to-end improvement case and builds an application pack for a live or proposed workplace initiative. The pack includes a problem statement, current-state map, baseline measures, root-cause evidence, prioritised actions, control plan and benefits-tracking approach. This gives managers a defined improvement proposal rather than a set of isolated training notes.

The programme is best suited to professionals who already work with KPIs, process maps, audit findings, production data or improvement projects and now need stronger analytical and implementation capability.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Construct a SIPOC and value stream map that identifies waste, delays, hand-offs and critical quality points
• Calculate process capability and sigma performance using Cp, Cpk, Pp and Ppk measures
• Build and interpret control charts to distinguish common-cause from special-cause variation
• Apply Pareto analysis, fishbone diagrams, 5 Whys and hypothesis testing to validate root causes
• Analyse productivity losses using OEE, capacity calculations, takt time and bottleneck constraints
• Develop a risk-based FMEA with severity, occurrence, detection and action-priority ratings
• Design a control plan with operational definitions, sampling rules, escalation triggers and ownership
• Produce a quantified quality and productivity improvement charter with benefits, milestones and governance

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Quality Managers — who must reduce recurring defects and establish reliable process controls
• Operations Managers — who need to improve throughput, labour productivity and service consistency
• Continuous Improvement Managers — who lead Lean or Six Sigma projects across operational functions
• Production Managers — who must address downtime, yield loss, bottlenecks and process variation
• Process Engineers — who analyse process capability and specify robust operating conditions
• Project Managers — who deliver operational change and need to verify measurable benefits

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have practical experience of an operational, service or project environment and be comfortable reading KPI reports, percentages, averages and basic charts. Familiarity with process mapping, root-cause analysis, Lean terminology or ISO 9001 is useful, but participants do not need to be certified in Lean Six Sigma. The course assumes confidence using spreadsheets, including entering formulas and creating charts in Microsoft Excel. A basic understanding of standard deviation is helpful; the instructor revisits the statistical concepts needed for capability and control-chart work. No coding, advanced mathematics or prior Minitab experience is required.

Training methodology

The instructor uses a progressive operational-improvement case throughout the five days, supported by short technical demonstrations and structured data-analysis clinics. Participants build maps, calculate capability, create control charts, diagnose losses and test improvement options using Excel and Minitab-based outputs. Small groups review competing root-cause evidence, challenge proposed countermeasures and make prioritisation decisions using risk, effort and benefits criteria. Daily exercises feed an individual end-of-course application pack, followed by a facilitated planning session to define a workplace project, sponsor conversation and 90-day implementation actions.

Course outline

Day 1: Diagnosing quality and productivity system performance

• Quality cost categories: prevention, appraisal, internal failure and external failure
• Operational KPI trees linking customer outcomes, quality, flow and cost
• SIPOC analysis for defining process boundaries and customer requirements
• Value stream mapping of material, information and decision flow
• Operational definitions and data-collection plans for critical measures
• Pareto analysis of defects, delays, rework and loss categories
• Improvement charters using problem, goal, scope, benefits and governance fields

Workshop: Participants create a current-state SIPOC, KPI tree and improvement charter for a simulated order-fulfilment process.

Day 2: Variation, measurement and process capability

• Sources of common-cause and special-cause process variation
• Descriptive statistics, distributions and standard deviation in operational data
• Measurement system analysis concepts: bias, repeatability and reproducibility
• Specification limits versus control limits and their management uses
• Process capability indices Cp, Cpk, Pp and Ppk
• Capability analysis for normal and non-normal process data
• Minitab and Excel workflows for capability studies and graphical interpretation

Workshop: Participants analyse a dataset of cycle-time and defect measurements, calculate capability indices and write a capability conclusion.

Day 3: Statistical control and validated root-cause analysis

• Control-chart selection for variables, attributes and short-run processes
• X-bar and R, individuals-moving range, p and u chart interpretation
• Western Electric-style run rules and special-cause signal investigation
• Stratification by product, shift, supplier, location and operator
• Cause-and-effect diagrams, 5 Whys and fault-tree logic
• Hypothesis testing and confidence intervals for improvement validation
• Root-cause evidence matrices separating observations, assumptions and verified causes

Workshop: Participants construct a control chart, investigate special-cause signals and produce a root-cause evidence matrix.

Day 4: Improving flow, capacity and operational reliability

• Overall equipment effectiveness: availability, performance and quality losses
• Takt time, cycle time, throughput and capacity calculations
• Theory of Constraints and bottleneck identification
• Little’s Law and work-in-progress management
• Lean waste analysis across service, project and production processes
• Failure mode and effects analysis with action-priority ratings
• Countermeasure selection using impact-effort, risk and feasibility criteria

Workshop: Teams diagnose a constrained production-service process, calculate OEE and capacity losses, and prioritise countermeasures through an FMEA.

Day 5: Sustaining gains and leading improvement implementation

• Control-plan design: measures, methods, frequency, limits and response actions
• Standard work, visual management and daily performance routines
• ISO 9001:2015 process control, corrective action and documented information links
• Pilot design, implementation sequencing and change-readiness assessment
• Benefits tracking for cost, quality, delivery, capacity and customer measures
• Improvement governance: sponsors, process owners, escalation and review cadence
• Ninety-day implementation planning and stakeholder communication

Workshop: Participants complete and present an improvement application pack containing a control plan, benefits tracker and 90-day implementation roadmap.

Tools & standards covered

Microsoft Excel, Minitab, Microsoft Power BI, ISO 9001:2015

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions