2016-04-16 update:
Dear students of earlier sessions of the Coursera MOOC 'Process Mining: Data science in Action', After many requests and hard work we were able to transfer the materials to the new 'on-demand' platform of Coursera. This means that as of coming Monday, April 18, this course will start every four weeks. You can join a course during the first week after opening, if you join later you have to wait until the next start (so at most three weeks). Please join the course now through
I have just finished the last week of a four week course on Process Improvement. The course was hosted by Coursera, and was taught by Associate Professor Gopesh Anand from University of Illinois.
The workload was above average for a business school course at Coursera as each week consisted of lectures, small quizzes, a graded quiz and two graded assignments (where you need to peer review two other participants work as part of the grading process.)
Week 1 covered an introduction to process improvement, the background and history of process improvement methods, as well as an introduction to the Lean and Six Sigma methodologies
Week 2 was on organizational infrastructure needed for managing Lean and Six Sigma process improvement initiatives and different techniques for aligning business strategy with continuous improvement. The modules also covered an introduction to operations management as well as value stream maps and project charters as techniques for getting started with process improvement projects.
Week 3 was about assessing quality of measurements, ways to synthesize knowledge and methods to analyze numerical data.This module included an overview of the Standard Normal Distribution, statistical process control, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and multiple linear regression.
Week 4 was on techniques for making and sustaining changes in processes with examples of the implementation of Lean as a process improvement initiative in a financial services company.
Was it good? Yes. I'm not sure that I will ever work as a lean or six sigma consultant, but I definitely got what I wanted from the course.
Read more about the course at
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