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Practitioner in Problem Solving Fundamentals

  • 2 months
  • 21-09-2026
  • Eindhoven
Does the same production issue keep coming back after every fix? Does a quality deviation land on your desk that no single team seems able to explain? In the Brainport high-tech industry, problems rarely sit within a single discipline. They live on the seams between engineering, production, quality and logistics. This course gives you the shared methods and the hands-on experience to tackle them together, right where the work happens.

About this course

As a Practitioner you learn to analyse technical problems structurally, develop data-based improvement directions and implement solutions that actually stick. You do this in a physical learning factory: a realistic production environment in Eindhoven where you run real production lines, collect real data, and see the effect of every choice you make.

The Practitioner in Problem Solving Fundamentals is a compact, intensive microcredential of 3 EC at NLQF level 5. It is part of a two-track programme developed with Brainport Development, ASML and leading Brainport employers. The Specialist track (NLQF 7) shares the same learning environment and covers the same core methods, but focuses on leading improvement trajectories and embedding them across the organisation.

 

Who the course is for

This programme is designed for technical professionals working in engineering, production, quality and logistics environments. The people who keep complex value chains in high-tech manufacturing running every day.

The Practitioner track is the right fit if you are actively involved in spotting, analysing and solving problems in technical products, processes or systems. You work in, or lead, multidisciplinary teams and you want a structured, shared approach that works across disciplines and companies.

Typical roles in this track:

  • Design or Development Engineer. Tracing technical root causes of product and design issues
  • Manufacturing or Production Engineer. Stabilising processes and reducing variation
  • Quality Engineer. Running root cause analyses and anchoring structural fixes
  • Test Engineer. Interpreting validation results and identifying underlying causes
  • Operator or Technician. Spotting deviations on the line and feeding data back into analysis
  • Team Lead or Line Manager. Guiding teams through structured problem solving and continuous improvement

Admission Requirements

You have a working and thinking level of at least NLQF 4, reached through education, work experience or a combination of both. You are comfortable following English-language instruction and working in English within a mixed team.
Fontys University of Applied Sciences values a strong combination of work and study. This way, you get the most out of your time at the programme. A job in a financial role is required. If you do not have a job yet, you must work in the financial-economic sector within a foreseeable time.

 

 

Content and structure 

The Practitioner track is built around a physical learning factory: a working production environment where theory and practice are never more than a few minutes apart. Every day you alternate short lectures with production runs that you plan, execute and evaluate as a team. A lecture on DMAIC in the morning turns into a root cause analysis on a real machine in the afternoon, and into a measurable process improvement the day after.

The Practitioner track consists of five training days and two assessment days, planned across two consecutive working weeks.

A total of 62 contact hours in the learning factory, plus around 22 hours of self-study for preparation, reflection and reporting.

You share these modules with Specialist-track participants. That mix is a deliberate didactic choice: in the real world, problems are solved by teams with different roles, seniority levels and thinking styles. By working shoulder-to-shoulder with senior engineers, quality managers and lead engineers, you build a shared problem-solving language that travels back into your daily work.

  • Frame a technical problem clearly and underpin it with relevant data
  • Apply Lean principles, DMAIC and root cause analysis to technical systems and processes
  • Use basic statistical techniques to separate signal from noise in production data
  • Develop, evaluate and choose between improvement directions based on evidence
  • Implement and secure improvements so they hold under real operating conditions
  • Collaborate effectively across Design, Manufacturing, Quality, Supplier Engineering and Leadership perspectives


On successful completion of the Practitioner in Problem Solving Fundamentals, you are able to analyse a technical issue in a system or process as part of a team, formulate data-based improvement directions, make reasoned choices between them and realise suitable improvements in practice. Three dimensions come together in this outcome:

Engineering Tools

You select and apply analysis tools and methods, including Lean, DMAIC, root cause analysis and basic statistical techniques, to gather data, interpret it and translate it into well-founded improvement directions.

Professional Collaboration

You work effectively in a multidisciplinary team, approach the issue from the perspectives of Design Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Quality Engineering, Supplier Engineering and Leadership, communicate findings and trade-offs clearly, contribute to joint decision-making and reflect on your own role and the team’s collaboration to improve both learning and work.

Engineering Mindset

You make decisions and underpin choices and priorities on the basis of data-driven decision-making, continuous improvement, Lean thinking and the principles of high-performing teams.

You are assessed through a professional product: the final production runs, evaluated by examiners against objective quality audits and an oral defence in which you explain the team’s choices and your own contribution. The focus is on demonstrated behaviour in a realistic setting, not on written exams.
 
 

Why choose this course

Fontys Technology has built this programme together with the companies that will hire its graduates. That shows up in four concrete ways.

Developed with and for the Brainport high-tech ecosystem

The curriculum comes directly from a shared request by Brainport Development, ASML and suppliers in the semiconductor value chain. It is continuously shaped by partners including DAF, Mikrocentrum and specialist partners such as QConsult, ITASC and Friedrich Franse / Settels & Savenije. The cases you work on are the cases these companies actually face.

A learning factory, not a classroom

Instead of watching slides, you run a factory. Each team takes responsibility for a production line and sees the direct effect of its decisions on output, quality and cost. This is where Lean, DMAIC and root cause analysis stop being acronyms and become instincts.

Mixed teams, shared language

Because Practitioner and Specialist participants learn together, you leave with more than a method. You leave with a network of colleagues across levels and companies who speak the same problem-solving language. That is what turns improvement from an individual skill into an organisational one.

A microcredential that counts

On successful completion you earn a formal Fontys microcredential at NLQF level 5. It is recognised by the Dutch higher education system and visible in your professional profile — a building block in a continuous learning path within Fontys Pro.

 

 

Practical information

Length
2 months
Start date(s)
21-09-2026

Duration and study load

The course has a total study load of 84 hours (3 ECTS) at NLQF level 5. This consists of 62 contact hours, spread across five training days and two assessment days, and 22 hours of self-study for preparation, reflection and reporting. The contact days are scheduled across two consecutive working weeks.

On-site in Eindhoven

The course takes place entirely on-site in Eindhoven. In this realistic production environment you run production lines as a team, alternating short lectures with hands-on application. Theory such as Lean, DMAIC and root cause analysis is put to work the same day, in a setting where every choice you make has a visible effect on output, quality and process stability.

Course dates

21 September 2026 – kick-off and start of training week 1

Training week 1 – five training days, learning factory modules (precise daily schedule to be confirmed)

Training week 2 – two assessment days with final production runs and oral defence (precise daily schedule to be confirmed)

Frequency

The course runs twice a year.

Group size

The course is designed for groups of 40 to 60 participants in the first cohort, scaling up to a maximum of 100 participants per edition in later cohorts.

Language

The course is delivered in English. Instruction, team collaboration and assessment all take place in English, in line with the everyday working language of Brainport-region employers.

Entry level

Participants have a working and thinking level of at least NLQF 4, reached through education, work experience or a combination of both. Sufficient command of English is expected to follow instruction and collaborate effectively in a mixed international team.

Certificate

After successful completion, you will receive an official Fontys microcredential certificate Practitioner in Problem Solving Fundamentals (NLQF level 5).

If your role is less about applying methods yourself and more about leading improvement trajectories, shaping standards and anchoring knowledge across the organisation, the Specialist variant may be a better fit. It builds on the same learning factory and shares the core content, but adds an individual portfolio and a criterion-based interview at NLQF level 7.

Discover the Specialist in Problem Solving Fundamentals

 

 

Register

Below you will find the start date of this course and a link to register.

Start date(s)


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Then registration is not possible at the moment (yet). Please feel free to contact us for more information about the course. We are happy to help! All contact details can be found at the bottom of this page.

 

Locaties en contact

Eindhoven

De Rondom 1, 5612AP, Eindhoven
Building Nexus
technology-llo@fontys.nl
Programme Contact: Marc Mussaeus
m.mussaeus@fontys.nl