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Six Sigma Certification

The IQF certification exam is nothing like traditional certification exams. Instead, it is a rigorous, computer-based test of your ability to use modern methods to improve business operations.  The exam consists of 2 modules:

  1. Fundamentals - short quaestions & problems designed to test the basic understanding of Six Sigma tools & concepts.

  2. Applications - detailed problems designed to test Six Sigma problem solving ability.

Each of these modules must be completed in 4 hours.  The exam is open book, and any computer software may be used.

Basic Tools Given a list of problems, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to construct a Pareto Diagram of the problem frequencies.
Basic Tools The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to construct and interpret a run chart when given a table of data in time-ordered sequence.  This includes calculating run length, number of runs and quantitative trend evaluation.
Basic Tools Given a set of raw data, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to construct a histogram.
Basic Tools The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to read values from a cumulative frequency ogive.
Descriptive stats Given a table of raw data, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to prepare a frequency tally sheet of the data, and to use the tally sheet data to construct a histogram.
Descriptive stats The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to compute the mean and standard deviation from a grouped frequency distribution.
Descriptive stats Given a set of raw data the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to identify and compute two statistical measures each for central tendency, dispersion, and shape.
Descriptive stats The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to compute univariate statistics for samples.
EDA Given a table of x and y data pairs, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to determine if the relationship is linear or non-linear.
EDA Given a stem & leaf plot, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to reproduce a sample of numbers to the accuracy allowed by the plot.
EDA Given a box plot with numbers on the key box points, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to identify the 25th and 75th percentile and the median.
Enumerative statistics Given a list which describes problems by department, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to construct a Crosstabulation and use the information to perform a Chi-square analysis.
Enumerative statistics The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to compute confidence intervals for various statistics.
Enumerative statistics The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to perform chi-square analysis of contingency tables.
Finance Given a table of COPQ data over time, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to perform a statistical analysis of the trend.
Finance Given a table of COPQ data over time, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to perform a statistical analysis of the distribution of costs among the various categories.
Finance The Six Sigma Black Belt will know the approximate relative cost of poor quality associated with various sigma levels (e.g., three sigma firms report 25% COPQ).
Finance The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to quantify the value of customer retention.
Finance The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to compute the value of money held or invested over time, including present value and future value of a fixed sum.
Finance The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to compute PV and FV values for various compounding periods.
Finance The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to compute the break even point for a project.
Finance The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to compute the net present value of cash flow streams, and to use the results to choose among competing projects.
Finance The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to compute the internal rate of return for cash flow streams and to use the results to choose among competing projects.
Finance The Six Sigma Black Belt will know the COPQ rationale for Six Sigma, i.e., he will be able to explain what to do if COPQ analysis indicates that the optimum for a given process is less than Six Sigma.
Finance The Six Sigma Black Belt will know the basic COPQ categories and be able to allocate a list of costs to the correct category.
Finance The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to use a quadratic loss function to compute the cost of a given process.
Leadership With minimal guidance, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to use data to convert broad generalizations into actionable goals.
Leadership The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to make the business case for attempting to accomplish these goals.
Leadership The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to develop detailed plans for achieving those goals.
Leadership The Six Sigma Black Belt should understand and be able to communicate the rationale for continuous improvement, even after initial goals have been accomplished.
Leadership The Six Sigma Black Belt should be familiar with research that quantifies the benefits firms have obtained from Six Sigma.
Leadership The Six Sigma Black Belt should understand the roles of the various people involved in change (senior leader, champion, mentor, change agent, technical leader, team leader, facilitator).
Leadership Given a partly completed QFD matrix, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to complete it.
Leadership The Six Sigma Black Belt should be familiar with the basic principles of benchmarking.
Leadership The Six Sigma Black Belt should be familiar with the limitations of benchmarking.
Leadership Given an organization chart and a listing of team members, process owners, and sponsors, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to identify projects with a low probability of success.
Measurement Given the results of an AIAG Gage R&R study, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to answer a variety of questions about the measurement system.
Measurement The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to identify measurement scales of various metrics (nominal, ordinal, etc).
Measurement Given a metric on a particular scale, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to determine if a particular statistical method should be used for analysis.
Measurement Given a properly collected set of data, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to perform a complete measurement system analysis, including the calculation of bias, repeatability, reproducibility, stability, discrimination (resolution) and linearity.
Measurement Given the measurement system metrics, the Six Sigma Black Belt will know whether or not a given measurement system should be used on a given part or process.
Modelling The Six Sigma Black Belt will know how to use non-linearities to make products or processes more robust.
Modelling The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to identify which cause on a list of possible causes will most likely explain a non-random pattern in the regression residuals.
Modelling Given the results of a replicated full-factorial experiment, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to complete the entire ANOVA table.
Modelling Given a "clean" experimental plan, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to find the correct number of replicates to obtain a desired power.
Modelling Given a set of data, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to perform a Latin Square analysis and interpret the results.
Modelling Ditto for one way ANOVA, two way ANOVA (with and without replicates), full and fractional factorials, and response surface designs.
Modelling Given an appropriate experimental result, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to compute the direction of steepest ascent.
Modelling Given a set of variables each at two levels, the Six Sigma Black Belt can determine the correct experimental layout for a screening experiment using a saturated design.
Modelling Given data for such an experiment, the Six Sigma Black Belt can identify which main effects are significant, and state the effect of these factors.
Modelling The Six Sigma Black Belt will understand fold over designs and be able to identify the fold over design that will clear a given alias.
Modelling The Six Sigma Black Belt will know how to augment a factorial design to create a composite or central composite design.
Modelling The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to evaluate the diagnostics for an experiment.
Modelling The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to identify the need for a transformation in y and to apply the correct transformation.
Modelling Given a response surface equation in quadratic form, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to compute the stationary point.
Modelling Given data (not graphics), the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to determine if the stationary point is a maximum, minimum or saddle point.
Modelling The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to conduct simple and multiple linear regression.
Modelling The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to identify patterns in residuals from an improper regression model and to apply the correct remedy.
PCA The Six Sigma Black Belt will know or be able to find the PPM rates associated with different sigma levels (e.g., Six Sigma = 3.4 PPM)
PCA Given a stable set of subgrouped data, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to perform a complete Process Capability Analysis.  This includes computing and interpreting capability indices, estimating the % failures, control limit calculations, etc.
Process Control The Six Sigma Black Belt should understand the mechanics of PRE-Control.
Process Control The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to correctly apply EWMA charts to a process with serial correlation in the data.
Process Control The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to apply statistical tolerancing to set tolerances for simple assemblies.  He will know how to compare statistical tolerances to so-called "worst case" tolerancing.
Process Control Given a set of subgrouped data, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to select and prepare the correct control charts and to determine if a given process is in a state of statistical control.  This should be demonstrated for all the commonly used control charts.
Process Control If shown control chart patterns, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to match the control chart with the correct situation (e.g., an outlier pattern vs. a gradual trend matched to a tool breaking vs. a machine gradually warming up).
Process Control The Six Sigma Black Belt will know how to establish control systems for maintaining the gains achieved through Six Sigma.
Project Management Given a list of tasks for a project, their times to complete, and their precedence relationships, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to compute the time to completion for the project, the earliest completion times, the latest completion times and the slack times.  He should also be able to identify which tasks are on the critical path.
Project Management Give cost and time data for project tasks, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to compute the cost of normal and crash schedules and the minimum total cost schedule.
Project Management Given a narrative description of "as-is" and "should-be" processes, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to prepare process maps.
Reliability The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to compute basic reliability statistics (mtbf, availability, etc.).
Reliability Given the failure rates for given subsystems, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to use reliability apportionment to set mtbf goals.
Reliability The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to compute the reliability of series, parallel, and series-parallel system configurations.
Reliability The Six Sigma Black Belt will demonstrate the ability to read an FMEA analysis.
Reliability The Six Sigma Black Belt will demonstrate the ability to read a fault tree.
Reliability Given distributions of strength and stress, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to compute the probability of failure.
Reliability How  many samples are required to demonstrate a specific reliability with a specific confidence level assuming no failures.
Reliability The Six Sigma Black Belt will know how to identify an increasing, decreasing or constant failure rate.
Reliability The Six Sigma Black Belt will know how to compute confidence limits for reliability and percentiles for the Weibull, lognormal and exponential distributions given a complete data set, a single censored data set and a multiply censored data set.
Reliability The Six Sigma Black Belt will know how to compute non-parametric confidence limits for reliability given a complete data set, a single censored data set and a multiply censored data set.
Reliability The Six Sigma Black Belt will know how to construct and interpret an FMECA.
Reliability The Six Sigma Black Belt will know how to determine the reliability of s stress-strength system.
Simulation The Six Sigma Black Belt will know how to use simulation to model systems given distributions for the components.
Simulation The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to develop and test simulation models of complex processes
Sociometric analysis Given two or more sets of survey data, the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to determine if there are statistically significant differences between them.
Sociometric analysis The Six Sigma Black Belt will know how to quantitatively analyze data from employee and customer surveys.  This includes evaluating survey reliability and validity as well as the differences between surveys.
Sociometric analysis The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to design, test, and analyze customer surveys.
Sociometric analysis The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to measure progress towards the goals in terms meaningful to customers and leaders.
Statistical Theory The Six Sigma Black Belt will know how to combine random variables mathematically.
Statistical Theory The Six Sigma Black Belt will know the difference between computing sigma from a data set whose production sequence is known and from a data set whose production sequence is not known.
Statistical Theory When told the data are from an exponential or Erlang distribution the Six Sigma Black Belt will know that the run chart is preferred over the standard X control chart.
Statistical Theory The Six Sigma Black Belt will know when to apply enumerative statistical methods, and when not to.
Statistical Theory The Six Sigma Black Belt will know when to apply analytic statistical methods, and when not to.
Statistical Theory The Six Sigma Black Belt should demonstrate a grasp of basic probability concepts, such as the probability of mutually exclusive events, of dependent and independent events, of events that can occur simultaneously, etc.
Statistical Theory The Six Sigma Black Belt will know factorials, permutations and combinations, and how to use these in commonly used probability distributions.
Statistical Theory The Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to compute expected values for continuous and discrete random variables.
Statistical Theory The Six Sigma Black Belt should be familiar with the commonly used probability distributions, including: hypergeometric, binomial, Poisson, normal, exponential, chi-square, Student's t, and F.
Statistical Theory Given a set of data the Six Sigma Black Belt will be able to correctly identify which distribution should be used to perform a given analysis, and to use the distribution to perform the analysis.
Statistical Theory The Six Sigma Black Belt will know that different techniques are required for analysis depending on whether a given measure (e.g., the mean) is assumed known or estimated from a sample.  The Six Sigma Black Belt should choose and properly use the correct technique when provided with data and sufficient information about the data.
Statistical Theory The Six Sigma Black Belt should understand the assumptions that underlie ANOVA, and be able to select and apply a transformation to the data.
Statistical Theory The Six Sigma Black Belt should demonstrate an awareness of the assumptions that underlie the use of capability indices.
Statistical Theory The Six Sigma Black Belt should understand the basic principles of planning a statistically designed experiment.  This can be demonstrated by critiquing various experimental plans with or without shortcomings.
Statistical Theory The Six Sigma Black Belt will know the difference between the various types of experimental models (fixed-effects, random-effects, mixed).
Statistical Theory The Six Sigma Black Belt should understand the concepts of randomization and blocking.
Statistical Theory The Six Sigma Black Belt will understand the idea of confounding and be able to identify which two factor interactions are confounded with the significant main effects.
Statistical Theory The Six Sigma Black Belt will understand the difference between regression and correlation studies.
Statistical Theory The Six Sigma Black Belt will be aware of the limits of the Six Sigma approach.

 

 

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