Vilfredo’s Pareto Chart Exceeds His Wildest Dream
Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian engineer, and economist developed the Pareto principle in 1895 to show the distribution of riches in society and state his claim that 20 percent of the population owned 80 percent of the wealth, and hence, the famous 80/20 rule was born. Never in his wildest dreams did he realize that it would someday become one of the simplest and greatest quality principles and...
Read MoreUse A Run Chart To Understand Process Variation
A run chart is a line graph that creates a picture of what’s happening in the process you are analyzing. It can help you identify variation patterns and changes that occur from one time period to another that can yield valuable insights. The first step in constructing a run chart is to select a key measure to track over time. The measure could be a quality measure, a productivity...
Read MoreDetermining Which Tool or Technique to Use Gets Easier With Experience
Deciding which tool or technique to use is sometimes challenging, but usually becomes less of a problem with experience. As an MBB I have certain favorite tools and techniques I use more often because I am more familiar with them and am more comfortable using them. I personally like tools that are graphical in nature, tools such as Pareto charts, box plots, run charts, control charts, VSM,...
Read MoreDesign of Experiments Are The Work Horse of Quality Improvement
The purpose of a design of experiments is to provide the most efficient and economical methods of reaching valid and relevant conclusions from the experiment being conducted. As stated in previous blog posts, there are many experimental designs to chose from and in my opinion this is part of the problem. The novice experimenter when faced with so many choices can become confused and...
Read MoreScreening Design of Experiments Sort Out Important Factors
As I stated in last week’s post, most beginning experimenters try to combine everything into one experiment. The thinking is if they can include everything, they can do one experiment and be done. But it never works that way. Instead it is an iterative approach, where you learn as you go, getting a better understanding with each experiment conducted. So where and how do you get...
Read MoreA Beginners Guide To Design of Experiments
Design of experiments (DOE) is one of the most valuable tools in the Six Sigma toolkit. It is the only tool that allows a proactive approach for process improvement. Unlike analysis of variance (ANOVA) or regression where past data is analyzed, DOE allows for the collection of realtime data and its analysis. It is ideally suited to address problems where more than one variable may affect...
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