The revolutions in lean manufacturing and quality have swept the world and broadened into the disciplines of lean enterprise and six sigma. Six Sigma’s emphasis is on improving existing capabilities. Six Sigma is a set of structured methodologies, problem-solving tools, and advanced statistical methods for analyzing and improving processes, product designs, and services on a broad range of metrics, especially cost, quality, time, and variability. It moves beyond treating symptoms and short-term problems to the elimination of root causes, thereby emphasizing lasting improvement.

This certificate, offered by the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering , is available to ISE graduate students and local professionals.

Major-Specific Graduation Requirements

All courses in the Certificate must be successfully completed with a grade of “B or better”, and students must pass an exit exam.

University Advanced Certificate Requirements

Advanced certificate programs offer postbaccalaureate students coursework leading to a specific, applied, focused goal. In order to be eligible for admission to an advanced certificate, students complete an intake form or apply through CalState Apply and submit an official transcript(s) (noting the completion of a U.S. bachelor’s degree from an accredited institution or the equivalent of a U.S. bachelor’s degree from an accredited and/or recognized institution from a foreign country). Students must have a minimum of 2.5 undergraduate GPA.

Students must maintain a minimum GPA of 3.0 in all advanced certificate coursework, with no less than the grade of “C” in any course. A maximum of 4 units of coursework with a grade of “C” can count toward an advanced certificate. A maximum of 4 units of coursework may be repeated. Undergraduate lower division courses are not applicable to advanced certificates. A maximum of 30% of any graduate degree program units (e.g., 9 units for a 30-unit Master’s degree) can be completed from another institution and/or units from Open University (including advanced certificate courses) at SJSU with approval from the department or school. The choice of grading requirements may have implications for transferability to degree programs (University Policy S16-17). 

The advisor/director of the program is responsible for verifying a student’s satisfactory completion of the academic requirements established for the program and for forwarding a copy of the certificate audit completion form to the Office of Graduate Admissions and Program Evaluations. The Office of the Registrar records the completion of the program on the student’s transcript.