Operational Excellence

Catalog description

This course focuses on the essence, principles, and practices of total quality management (TQM) and Operational Excellence. Students learn management issues of identifying, analyzing, and implementing improvement projects in organizations. Topics are mostly non-quantitative with a focus on challenging aspects of quality management that students need to know beyond green belt certification such as learning to see processes better, defining quality ethically, analyzing side effects of change, and leading Kaizen, benchmarking, and brainstorming sessions. The course involves a rigorous real-world project of continuous improvement. Students will also have an opportunity to visit a local plant to get hands on experience with a real Kaizen event. Several guest talks are also scheduled to invite Black Belt professionals to discuss their experiences with quality management in Supply Chain. Offered as OPMT 478 and SCMG 478 . Prereq: OPMT 420 or IIME 440.