Process and systems optimization for engineers — lean manufacturing, Six Sigma, OEE and quality, operations research, inventory and supply chain, line balancing, and FE/PE Industrial & Systems exam prep.
Compute Overall Equipment Effectiveness from planned production time, downtime, ideal cycle time, and good vs total units. Breaks the result into Availability × Performance × Quality, color-codes each factor, and benchmarks against the world-class 85% target and the six big losses.
Find the pace of production needed to meet customer demand. Enter available time, planned stops, and demand to get takt time in sec/unit and min/unit, then compare actual cycle time to see whether the line keeps up and how many workstations are required.
Relate work-in-process, throughput, and lead time with L = λ × W. Solve for any of the three variables given the other two, with clear unit handling — the backbone of queuing, lean flow, and the Theory of Constraints.
Economic Order Quantity that minimizes total inventory cost. Enter annual demand, ordering cost, and holding cost to get EOQ, orders per year, time between orders, total annual cost, and the reorder point from lead time.
Balance an assembly line across workstations. Enter task times and a target cycle time (or daily output) to get the theoretical minimum number of stations, line efficiency, balance delay, and bottleneck flags.
Assess whether a process can meet specification. Enter spec limits, mean, and standard deviation to get Cp, Cpk, Pp, Ppk, an estimated sigma level and ppm out of spec, with color-coded capability indices.
Build a value stream map: chain process boxes with cycle time, changeover, uptime, and operators, set inventory buffers between them, and get takt time, total lead time, value-added time, and process cycle efficiency — with a live VSM diagram and timeline ladder.
Single- and multi-server queue analysis. Enter arrival and service rates and the number of servers to get utilization, average queue length and number in system, and waiting times — with an instability warning when ρ ≥ 1.
Build a project network of activities with durations (or three-point PERT estimates) and predecessors. Forward/backward pass computes ES/EF/LS/LF and slack, identifies the critical path and project duration, and gives PERT variance.
Component and system reliability. Compute R(t)=e^(−λt), MTBF, and availability from MTTR, then combine components in series or parallel for system reliability.
Convert between defects per million opportunities, sigma level (with the 1.5σ shift), and yield. Enter defects, units, and opportunities, or go backward from a target sigma level, with a reference table.
Build X̄-R or p-charts from your subgroup data. Computes the center line and control limits with the standard SPC constants, flags out-of-control points, and plots the chart.
Size safety stock and the reorder point from demand and lead-time variability and a target service level. Converts service level to a Z-value and accounts for demand and lead-time standard deviation.
Wright's learning curve: enter the first-unit time and learning rate to get the time for any unit, the cumulative total, and cumulative average — for estimating production runs and labor as workers gain experience.
Convert an observed cycle time to normal and standard time using performance rating and allowances, and get standard output per shift — the core of time study and work measurement.
Forecast a demand series with moving average, weighted moving average, or exponential smoothing, and measure accuracy with MAD, MSE, MAPE, and bias.
Ergonomic manual-lifting assessment. Compute the Recommended Weight Limit (RWL) from the horizontal, vertical, distance, asymmetry, frequency, and coupling multipliers, plus the Lifting Index (LI).
Least-squares regression on your (x, y) data: slope, intercept, correlation r, and R², with prediction and a scatter-plus-fitted-line plot.
Economic Production Quantity with gradual replenishment, plus an EOQ-with-quantity-discounts mode. Get the optimal run size, maximum inventory, number of runs, and total annual cost.
Sequence n jobs on two machines to minimize makespan using Johnson's rule. Get the optimal order, the makespan, and a Gantt-style timeline with idle time.
Industrial and systems engineering has two credential tracks: the NCEES licensure ladder (FE Industrial and Systems → PE Industrial and Systems Engineering) and the process-improvement certifications built on Lean and Six Sigma (ASQ / IASSC Green Belt and Black Belt). This overview maps what each covers, who administers it, and how they ladder.
FE Industrial and Systems prep: math & statistics, engineering economics, optimization, production systems, facilities, work design, quality, and ethics — the gateway to PE licensure.
PE Industrial and Systems prep: engineering economics, optimization, production & supply-chain systems, quality engineering, facilities, human factors, and project management — the licensure exam.
Lean Six Sigma Green Belt prep: the full DMAIC body of knowledge — Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control — plus Lean fundamentals, MSA, capability, and control charts.
Lean Six Sigma Black Belt prep: advanced statistics, design of experiments, regression, lean enterprise, and the leadership skills to run complex improvement programs.
Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt prep: Six Sigma and Lean basics, the DMAIC overview, SIPOC process mapping, the seven QC tools, and team roles — the entry point to the belt ladder.
ASQ CQE prep: quality systems, SPC, design of experiments, reliability, metrology, and acceptance sampling — the deep-quality credential.
APICS/ASCM CPIM prep: demand planning, MRP, inventory management, capacity planning, and lean operations — the production & inventory standard.
PMP prep: leading teams, the technical project-management process, business environment, schedule and earned-value management, risk, and agile/hybrid delivery.
A 12-section interactive reference covering lean and the 8 wastes, Six Sigma DMAIC, OEE, takt/cycle time and line balancing, Little’s Law and the Theory of Constraints, SPC and process capability, inventory (EOQ/EPQ/ROP/safety stock), queuing theory, CPM/PERT, forecasting, and a master formula quick-reference.