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System Reliability Center 201 Mill Street Rome, NY 13440-6916 888.722.8737 or 315.337.0900 Fax: 315.337.9932

Quality Tools, The Basic Seven
This topic actually contains an assortment of tools, some developed by quality engineers, and some adapted from other applications. They provide the means for making quality management decisions based on facts. No particular tool is mandatory, any one maybe helpful, depending on circumstances. A number of software programs are available as aids to the application of some of these tools. Total Quality Management (TQM) and Total Quality Control (TQC) literature make frequent mention of seven basic tools. Kaoru Ishikawa contends that 95% of a company's problems can be solved using these seven tools. The tools are designed for simplicity. Only one,control charts require any significant training. The tools are: • • • • • • • Flow Charts Ishikawa Diagrams Checklists Pareto Charts Histograms Scattergrams Control Charts

Flow Charts A flow chart shows the steps in a process i.e., actions which transform an input to an output for the next step. This is a significant help in analyzing a process but it must reflect the actual process used ratherthan what the process owner thinks it is or wants it to be. The differences between the actual and the intended process are often surprising and provide many ideas for improvements. Figure 1 shows the flow chart for a hypothetical technical report review process. Measurements could be taken at each step to find the most significant causes of delays, these may then be flagged for improvement.

1System Reliability Center 201 Mill Street Rome, NY 13440-6916 888.722.8737 or 315.337.0900 Fax: 315.337.9932

Quality Tools, The Basic Seven (Cont'd)
1 Start Review Process Draft Report 2 Peer Review Rewritten Report Yes 6 Technical Change? No a

3 Problem? No a Rewritten Report

Yes Comments

5 Rewrite

Draft Report

4 Management Review

7 Helpful Idea? No

Yes SuggestionsDraft to Printer 8 Done

Figure 1. Flow Chart of Review Process In making a flow chart, the process owner often finds the actual process to be quite different than it was thought to be. Often, non-value-added steps become obvious and eliminating these provides an easy way to improve the process. When the process flow is satisfactory, each step becomes a potential target for improvement.Priorities are set by measurements. In Figure 1, the average time to complete peer review (get from Step 2 to Step 4) and to complete management review (get from Step 4 to Step 8) may be used to decide if further analysis to formulate corrective action is warranted. It may be necessary to expand some steps into their own flow charts to better understand them. For example, if we have an unsatisfactoryamount of time spent in management review we might expand Step 4 as shown in Figure 2.

2

System Reliability Center 201 Mill Street Rome, NY 13440-6916 888.722.8737 or 315.337.0900 Fax: 315.337.9932

Quality Tools, The Basic Seven (Cont'd)
Document Received

Document Logged in, Put in In-basket

Document Waits for Manager to Read

Document Read

Helpful Idea?

Yes

No

CommentsPrepared

Document Sent to Printing

Suggestions Sent Out

Rework Done

Figure 2. Flow Chart of Management Review Figure 2 shows many possibilities for delay in management review. It may be that it takes too long for the manager to get around to reading the document. Or, too much time may be consumed in rework to address the comments of the manager. Only some more measurements will tell.Corrective actions to the former may include the delegation of review authority. Training the technical writers to avoid the most frequent complaints of the managers could possibly cure the latter. It may also be found that the manager feels obligated to make some comment on each report he reviews, and changing this perception may be helpful. Whatever the solution, information provided by the...