Quality Improvement: Problem Solving

-: Objective of training :-
•Present an overview of Seven Quality Tools
•Address purpose of each QC tools
•Address application in problem solving
•Address benefits of each tool

Quality Improvement: Problem Solving

SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement
 -: History of SPC:-
In 1924, a man at Bell Telephone
Laboratories was conducting research
on methods to improve quality and to
lower costs. He developed the concept
of control with regard to variation, and
came up with Statistical Process
Control Charts which provide a simple
way to determine if the process is in
control or not. His name was Dr.Walter
Shewart. He eventually published a
book titled “Statistical Method from the
Viewpoint of Quality Control” (1939).

SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement

 WHAT IS STATISTICAL PROCESS
CONTROL?

 What is Statistics?
-The science of collecting, organizing, analyzing
and interpreting data in order to make a decision.
 What is Process?
-A series of actions or steps taken in order to
achieve a particular product.

SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement

 WHAT IS STATISTICAL PROCESS
CONTROL?
 Statistical process control (SPC): defined as the use of statistical
techniques to control a process or production method.

It helps to see, “When a process is working

correctly & when it is not.”
To discover the issues due to variation in
process & find solutions for production issues.
In Process Control, the focus is on process
inputs and output seems un-important because,
a) Output can’t be changed directly b) Only
inputs can be directly changed c) The quality
of final output depends entirely on the inputs.
The output provide information about process
capability for the customer’s point of view. It
helps to determine which inputs have a
significant effect on the process results.
SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement
 What are the Benefits of Statistical
Process Control?
• Reduced scrap, rework, and
warranty claims
• Maximized productivity
• Improved resource utilization
• Increased operational
efficiency
• Decreased manual inspections
• Improved client satisfaction
• Reduced Manufacturing Costs
• Improved & Consistent
Product Quality
• Improved Safety
• Improved Energy Saving
SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement
 Why Is Quality Important for a
Business?
• Meet Customer Expectations: Customers expect you to deliver Quality products so that
delivered product should work well into their application. Customers aren’t going to
choose you solely based on Price, but often on Quality. In fact, studies have shown that
customers will pay more for a product or service. If you fail to meet customers'
expectation then, they will quickly look for alternatives.
• Satisfy Customer & Increase Profitability: Quality is critical to satisfying your customers
and retaining their loyalty so they continue to buy from you in the future. Quality
products make an important contribution to long-term revenue and profitability. They
also enable you to charge and maintain higher prices.
• Establish Your Reputation: Quality reflects on your company’s reputation. Poor quality
or product failure that results in a product recall campaign can lead to negative publicity
and damage your reputation.
• Meet or Exceed Industry Standards: It helps to achieve quality standards accreditation
e.g. ISO 9001 and IATF16949 etc. It helps you to win new customers giving prospects
your company’s ability to supply quality products.
• Manage Costs Effectively: Poor quality increases costs. Cost of analyzing non-
conforming goods or services to determine the root causes and retesting products after
reworking them. In some cases, you may have to scrap defective products and pay
additional production costs to replace them. If defective products reach customers, you
will have to pay for returns and replacements and, in serious cases, you could incur
legal costs for failure to comply with customer or industry standards.
 -: 7 Quality Control Tools:-

1. Check sheets
2. Stratification
3. Pareto chart
4. Cause and
effect diagram
5. Histogram
6. Control chart
7. Scatter
diagram
SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement
 -: PDCA
APPROACH :-
WHAT Definition of problem

PLAN WHY Analysis of problem

HOW Identification of causes

Planning countermeasure

DO Implementation

CHECK Confirming effectiveness

ACT Standardizations

SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement

SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement
-: 1st Quality tool:
Check Sheet :-
 -: Check
Sheet :-
 Purpose:-
• Tool for collecting and organizing
measured or counted data
• Data collected can be used as input data
for other quality tools
• Data Collections are based on answering
the questions of What, Where, Who & How
When to Use a Check Sheet?
- To collect data repeatedly by the same
person or at the same location.
- To collect data on the frequency or
patterns of events, problems, defects, defect
location, defect causes, etc.
- To collect data from a production process.
Revised format of Inprocess report of
september 19.xlsx
SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement
 -: Check
Sheet :-
Revised format of Inprocess
report of september 19.xlsx

Benefits:
• Collect data in a systematic and
organized manner
• To determine source of problem
• To facilitate/simplify classification of
data (stratification)
• The check sheet is a simple and
effective way to display data.
• It provides a uniform data collection

SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement

 -: 2nd Quality Tool:
Stratification :-

SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement

 -: Stratification :-
 Definition:-
Stratification is a system of formation of
layers, classes, or categories.
Data collected using check sheets need to be
meaningfully classified. Such classification helps
gaining a preliminary understanding of relevance
and dispersion of data so that further analysis can be
planned to obtain a meaningful output. Meaningful
classification of data is called stratification.

When to Use Stratification?

- When data come from several sources or
conditions, such as shifts, days of the week,
suppliers or population groups.
- When data analysis may require separating
different sources or conditions.
- Example: 1) Variation of object in three
different machines 2) Age stratification of two
different country 3) Division of society, etc.
- IMP Stratification-diagram trial template.xlsx
 -: 3 Quality Tool:
Pareto Chart:-

SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement

 -: Pareto Principle :-

• Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) Italian

economist developed this principle.
• 20% of the population has 80% of
the wealth
• Juran used the term “vital
(Significant) few, trivial (In-
significant) many.” He noted that
20% of the quality problems caused
80% of the dollar loss.
• Purpose: The purpose of a Pareto
diagram is to separate the significant
aspects of a problem from the trivial 7 Quality Tools
ones.
SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement
 -: Pareto
Chart
Benefit :-
 IMP Pareto for final NC internal
rejection.xlsx

 Benefits:
 Improved Decision Making
 Improved focus on the inputs that will
have the greatest impact.
 Enhanced Problem-Solving Skills
 Enhanced Organizational Efficiency
 Provides an easy way to compare
before and after snapshots to verify
that any process changes had the
desired result. SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement
 -: 4th Quality Tool:
Fishbone Diagram :-

SPC: Quality Consistency &

Improvement
 -: Fishbone Diagram :-
The Cause and Effect diagram analysis was first developed by
Professor Kaoru Ishikawa of the University of Tokyo in the 1940s’,
Is also known as the ‘Fishbone Diagram’ or the ‘Ishikawa Diagram’
or the ‘Cause-and-Effect Diagram’.

 Description - The fishbone diagram identifies many possible causes for an effect
or problem. It can be used to structure a brainstorming session. It immediately sorts
ideas into useful categories.

 When to use a Fishbone Diagram?

- When identifying possible causes for a
problem. Especially, when a team’s thinking
tends to fall into roots. It can be identify by
‘6M’ techniques:
i) Methods
ii) Machines (Equipment)
iii) Manpower (People)
iv) Materials
v) Measurement
vi) Management, Environment… etc, SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement
 -: -: Fishbone Diagram :-
 Rating of identified causes:-
- Degree of actual cause: Very likely (V); Somewhat likely (S); Not likely (N)
- Easy to check: Very easy (V); Somewhat easy (S); Not easy (N)

The causes that receive VV responses are investigated first since these are most likely to
be the cause of the problem and are the easiest to check. In this case, the "Battery"
received the only VV.
 -: Fishbone
Diagram :-
Benefits:
• Breaks problems down into bite-
size pieces to find root cause
• Fosters/Encourage team
work/participation
• Common understanding of factors
causing the problem
• Road map to verify picture of the
process
• Follows brainstorming relationship
• Indicates possible causes of
variation
• Increases process knowledge
• Diagram demonstrates knowledge
of problem solving team
• Diagram is a guide for data
collection
-: 5th Quality
Tool:
Histogram :-

SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement

 -: Histogram :-
• Description -
Histograms are graphs of a distribution of data designed
to show centering, dispersion (spread) & shape (relative
frequency) of the data. They are used to understand how
the output of a process relates to customer expectations
(targets/specifications) & help answer the question: "Is
process capable of meeting customer requirements”

• When to Use a Histogram?

1) When the data are numerical.
2) When you want to see the shape of data’s distribution
3) When analyzing whether a process can meet the
customer’s requirements.
4) When analyzing what the output from a supplier’s
process looks like.
5) When seeing whether a process change has occurred
from one time period to another.
6) When determining whether the outputs of two or more
processes are different.
7) When you wish to communicate the distribution of
data quickly & easily to others. SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement
 -: Plotting of
Histogram :-
Plotting of Histogram:-
IMP Capability Study with Histogram Excel Template (Recovered).xlsx

 Sample size: A histogram works best when the sample size

is at least 20Nos or more. If the sample size is too small, each
bar on the histogram may not contain enough data points to
accurately show the distribution of the data.

 No. of Bars in Histogram:

As a thumb rule, the no. of bars in histogram are the square root of the number of data points
by rounding the value. For example: a) 25 data points = 5 bars b) 100 data points = 10 bars
Number of Number of
Data Points Bars in
from report Histogram
20-50 6
51-100 7
101-200 8
201-500 9
501-1000 10
1000+ 11-20
 -: Interpretation of
Histogram :-
Normal Distribution: The data is evenly distributed about
the center of the data i.e. called symmetrical distribution.

Left skew: The data in the following graph are left-

skewed. Most of the sample values are clustered on the
left side of the histogram.

Right skew: The data in the following graph are right

-skewed. Most of the sample values are clustered on the
right side of the histogram.

Outliers: The isolated bars at the ends identify outliers.

The data values are far away from other data values, can
strongly affect your results. Try to identify the cause of any
outliers. Correct any data-entry errors/measurement errors
Or any special causes. Then, repeat analysis.
Quality Improvement: Problem Solving
 -: Histogram :-
Definitions :-
- Process Capability (Cp): Cp is the
capability, if the process was perfectly
centered between the specification limits. A
simple and straightforward indicator of
process capability.
Process Capability Index (Cpk): Cpk is the
capability index, if the mean is centered
between the specification limits or not. The
‘k’ stands for ‘centralizing factor.’

Example: “If you hunt or shoot targets with

arrow or gun try this analogy. If your shots
are falling in the same spot forming a good
group this is a high Cp, and when the
sighting is adjusted so this tight group of
shots is landing on the bulls-eye, you now
have a high Cpk.”

“You must have a Cpk of 1.33 [4 sigma] or

higher to satisfy most customers.”
 -: Histogram :-
Benefits:
• Allows you to understand
at a glance the variation
that exists in a process
• The shape of the
histogram will show
process behavior
• The shape and size of the
dispersion will help
identify hidden sources
of variation
• Used to determine the
capability of a process
• Starting point for the
improvement process Quality Improvement: Problem Solving
-: 6th Quality Tool:
Control Chart :-

SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement

 -: Control
Chart :- UCL
 Purpose:-
The control chart is to study how a LCL
process changes over time.
 Guidelines:-
A control chart always has a central UCL
line for the average, an upper line for
the upper control limit and a lower
LCL
line for the lower control limit. These
lines are determined from historical
data. By comparing current data to
these lines, you can draw conclusions UCL
about whether the process variation is
consistent (in control) or is LCL
unpredictable (out of control,
affected by special causes of variation). SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement
 -: Control
Chart :-
 When to Use a Control Chart :-

- When controlling ongoing

processes by finding and correcting
problems as they occur.
- When predicting the expected range
of outcomes from a process.
- When determining whether a
process is stable (in statistical
control).
- When analyzing patterns of process
variation from special causes (non-
routine events) or common causes
(built into the process).
- IMP SPC Individual and Moving
Range revision k.xlsx SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement
 -: Control Chart :-
 Common Cause of Variance: Also referred to as “Natural
Problems, “Noise,” “Predictable” and “Random Cause”
• Reducing common-cause variation usually requires
making fundamental/essential changes in your process
• Addressing the common cause variation will improve the
process performance.
• lack of clearly defined standard procedures, poor working
conditions, measurement errors, normal wear and tear of
drawing die, computer response times, etc.

 Strategy for eliminating assignable/Special cause

(i.e. unpredictable errors) variation:
• Get timely data so that you see the effect of the
assignable cause soon after it occurs.
• As soon as you see something indicates that an
assignable cause of variation has happened, search
for the cause.
• Change tools to compensate for the assignable cause.
• E.g. machine malfunctions/breakdown, a computer
crashes, there is a power cut, etc.
SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement
Quality Improvement: Problem Solving
Benefits:
-: Control Chart :-
 Predict process out of control and out of
specification limits
 Distinguish between specific, identifiable
causes of variation
 Can be used for statistical process control
 Control charts allow operators to detect
manufacturing problems before they
occur, this greatly reduces the need for
product rework or additional product
expenditures.
 Control charts serve as the early warning
detection system, telling you that now is
the time to go in and make a change.
 After analyzing a control chart, operators
need to determine whether to “do
something” (i.e. adjust a behavior in the
process) or “do nothing,” (i.e. let the
process run as is).
SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement
-: 7th Quality tool: Scatter Diagram :-

SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement

-: Scatter Diagram :-
Purpose:
To identify the correlations that
might exist between a quality
characteristic and a factor that
might be driving it
Dots representing data points
A scatter diagram shows the are scattered on the diagram.
correlation between two variables
in a process. These variables
could be a Critical To Quality
(CTQ) characteristic.

SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement

 -: Scatter Diagram :-
Procedure: How is it done?
• Decide which paired factors you want to
examine. Both factors must be
measurable on some incremental linear
scale.
• Collect 30 to 100 paired data points.
• Find the highest and lowest value for
both variables.
• Draw the vertical (y) and horizontal (x)
axes of a graph.
• Plot the data
• Title the diagram

The shape that the cluster of dots takes will tell

you something about the relationship between
the two variables that you tested.
SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement
 -: Scatter Diagram :-
• If the variables are
correlated, when one
changes the other
probably also changes.
• Dots that look like they
are trying to form a line
are strongly correlated.
• Sometimes the scatter
plot may show little
correlation when all the
data are considered at
once.

SPC: Quality Consistency & Improvement