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Specialist in Problem Solving Fundamentals

  • 2 months
  • 21-09-2026
  • Eindhoven
Does your organisation solve the same type of problem every quarter? Sometimes with a different team, sometimes with a different name, but always without the fix really sticking? Moving from solving incidents to embedding structural improvement is a different craft. It asks you to lead the analysis, weigh strategic trade-offs and turn lessons into standards that outlast a single project.

About this course

As a Specialist you deepen your command of structured problem solving, learn to frame complex cross-functional issues and develop evidence-based strategies that hold up in review meetings and on the shop floor alike. You do this in a physical learning factory in Eindhoven, working alongside Practitioners, senior engineers and quality managers from across the Brainport ecosystem.

The Specialist in Problem Solving Fundamentals is a 4 EC microcredential at NLQF level 7. It is the senior counterpart to the Practitioner track (NLQF 5), with the same shared learning environment and core methods, but with extra depth, an individual portfolio and a criterion-based interview that focus on your strategic, analytical and leadership contribution.

 

Who the course is for

The Specialist track is for experienced technical professionals whose work goes beyond personally applying problem-solving methods. You are the person others turn to when an issue is complex, cross-functional or politically sensitive. You structure analyses, guide decisions, embed methods in teams and make sure that what was learned actually changes how work is done.

Typical roles in this track

  • Senior or Lead Engineer. Steering complex cross-disciplinary analyses
  • Quality Engineer or Quality Manager. Anchoring structural improvements across products and processes
  • Manufacturing or Production Manager. Driving operational performance improvement trajectories
  • Improvement or Continuous Improvement Lead. Embedding problem-solving standards across teams
  • Team Lead or Line Manager. Responsible for knowledge, coaching and standardisation
  • Engineering or R&D Manager. Aligning problem-solving with strategic priorities

Admission Requirements

You have a working and thinking level of at least NLQF 4, reached through education, work experience or a combination of both. Given the NLQF 7 level of this microcredential, advanced professional experience in a relevant technical role is strongly recommended. Fluent command of English is expected, in line with daily practice at Brainport-region employers.

 

 

Content and structure

You attend the same physical learning factory modules as Practitioner-track participants: five training days and two assessment days across two working weeks, in mixed teams that run real production lines. That shared base is deliberate, in your own organisation, improvement only sticks when Practitioners and Specialists share a language and a method.

What sets the Specialist track apart is the depth and ownership the programme asks of you, and the additional assessment phase that follows the joint modules.

The programme runs for about four to six weeks in total.

The first two weeks are the shared phase with 62 contact hours in the learning factory. After that, the Specialist track continues with a focused individual phase: roughly 28 additional hours for portfolio work, self-study and preparation for the final interview.

In your portfolio you make your reasoning visible. The methods you chose, the data you used, the trade-offs you weighed and the leadership role you played in the team. Your work is then discussed in a criterion-based interview with examiners: a structured conversation that confirms the depth of your individual mastery beyond what the team delivered.

  • Frame and structure complex, cross-disciplinary technical problems where cause-and-effect is not linear
  • Select, combine and critically apply analysis methods and data-analysis techniques at NLQF 7 level
  • Translate analysis into evidence-based strategies and improvement directions, weighing constraints, trade-offs and organisational consequences
  • Facilitate decision-making across Design, Manufacturing, Quality, Supplier Engineering and Leadership perspectives
  • Facilitate decision-making across Design, Manufacturing, Quality, Supplier Engineering and Leadership perspectives
  • Reflect critically on the limits of your own knowledge and of the current state of the field, and factor that reflection into your decisions

On successful completion of the Specialist in Problem Solving Fundamentals, you are able to analyse and structure complex issues in technical systems or processes, develop data-based strategies and improvement directions, make reasoned choices between them and realise and anchor durable improvements within the organisation. Three dimensions of senior professional conduct come together in this outcome:

Engineering Tools

You select, combine and critically apply analysis methods and data-analysis techniques at NLQF 7 level to unpack complex issues and translate them into well-founded strategies and improvement directions.

Professional Collaboration

You integrate the perspectives of Design Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering, Quality Engineering, Supplier Engineering and Leadership. You facilitate decision-making, steer collaboration between disciplines, secure alignment and the durable embedding of solutions within the organisation, and reflect critically on your own conduct and on the collaboration. Signalling the limits of your own knowledge and of the current state of the field, and factoring those into further analysis and decision-making.

Engineering Mindset

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


Assessment combines three components: the team-based professional product of the production runs, an individual portfolio that explicates methods, analyses and leadership, and a criterion-based interview based on that portfolio. Together they secure that the microcredential reflects what you know, what you can do and how you lead. Not only what your team achieved.
 
 

Why choose this course

The Specialist track gives you a senior-level credential grounded in a real production environment and in the network that will hire, fund or partner with your organisation. That shows up in four concrete ways.

Developed with industry, grounded in the Brainport ecosystem

The programme is the direct answer to a shared request from Brainport Development, ASML and the semiconductor value chain. It is co-developed with partners such as DAF, Mikrocentrum, QConsult, ITASC and Friedrich Franse / Settels & Savenije. That means the cases, the complexity and the expectations mirror the reality you will return to on Monday.

Depth where senior roles need it

Where the Practitioner track focuses on applying methods, the Specialist track emphasises structuring complex problems, underpinning strategies with data, and anchoring change across the organisation. The individual portfolio and criterion-based interview make that senior mastery visible and assessable.

Cross-level learning as a leadership skill

You train alongside Practitioners, not separately. That is deliberate: leading structured improvement means bridging between practical, operational and analytical perspectives — exactly what you practise here every day. The network you build across levels and companies is part of the value you bring home.

A senior microcredential that counts

On successful completion you earn a formal Fontys microcredential at NLQF level 7 — recognised within the Dutch higher education framework and a clear signal of senior mastery. It fits into the wider Fontys Pro portfolio for experienced technical professionals.

 

 

Practical information

Length
2 months
Start date(s)
21-09-2026
Duration and study load

The course has a total study load of 112 hours (4 ECTS) at NLQF level 7. This consists of 62 contact hours in the learning factory, spread across five training days and two assessment days, 22 hours of self-study for preparation and reflection, and 28 additional hours for portfolio work and preparation of the final criterion-based interview. The total programme runs for approximately four to six weeks.

On-site in Eindhoven with an individual follow-up phase

The core of the course takes place on-site in Eindhoven. You run production lines as a team alongside Practitioner-track participants, alternating short lectures with hands-on application of Lean, DMAIC and root cause analysis. After this shared phase, you continue individually with portfolio work and preparation for your final interview with the examiners.

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) Weeks 3–6 — individual phase: portfolio work and criterion-based interview with examiners (exact deadlines 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. Given the NLQF 7 level of this microcredential, advanced professional experience in a relevant technical role is strongly recommended. Fluent command of English is expected.

Certificate

After successful completion, you will receive an official Fontys microcredential certificate Specialist in Problem Solving Fundamentals (NLQF level 7).

If your day-to-day work is about applying structured problem solving on the shop floor rather than leading organisation-wide improvement trajectories, the Practitioner variant is likely a better starting point. It shares the same learning environment and core methods, and runs at NLQF level 5.

Discover the Practitioner 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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Locaties en contact

Eindhoven

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