Walter Shewhart Contributions On Total Quality

Management

Who was Walter Shewhart

Walter Andrew Shewhart ( March 18, 1891 – March 11, 1967) was an American physicist,
engineer and statistician, sometimes known as the father of statistical quality control and the
person who developed the Control Chart. From the late 1930s onwards, Shewhart’s interests
expanded out from industrial quality to wider concerns in science and statistical inference.
Shewhart’s approach to statistics was radically different from that of many of his
contemporaries. He possessed a strong operationalist outlook, largely absorbed from the
writings of pragmatist philosopher C. I. Lewis, and this influenced his statistical practice.

Originally an Engineer and Statistician, Walter A. Shewhart is above all known as the true
"Father of Modern Quality" whereas W. Edwards Deming was his student and spiritual son.
Shewhart introduced the concept of Statistical Process Control (SPC) in Manufacturing.

Contributions On Total Quality Management

One of the most notable contributors to modern industry is Walter Shewhart, a quality control
pioneer. He started his rise to guru status as a Bell Telephone employee in 1918. Shewhart set
precedents that would be referenced for years to come in establishing the importance of
information distribution among quality managers and production personnel.

As influential as SPC is, this is not the essential contribution made by Shewhart. His essential idea he
planted in the head of Deming was the concept of Profound Knowledge and PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-
Action) or PDSA (Plan-Do-Study-Act) spiral: Plan what you want to do, do it, study the results, make
corrections, and start the cycle again .

SQC
Walter Shewrart Designed the original version of Statistical Quality Control(SQC) for the zero
defect mass production of the complex telephone exchanges and telephone sets. He describe in
his books the precise definitions of quality control. His books contains the statistical techniques
for evaluating production and improving quality. Shewharts books “ Economic Control of
Quality Of Manufactured Product is regarded as a landmark contribution in the area of Quality
Management. His books contains several important aspects of quality control including
definition of manufacturing control using precise and measurable terms, clearly explained
techniques for monitoring and evaluating production on daily basis etc. In this books, he has
also suggested two important quality-improvement tools Based on Shewharts Model such as

1. Process control and ‘Sampling’ &

2. Probability Analysis

Edward Deeming later developed his own version of SQC which he introduced in Japan.

Shewhart SPC Charts: Common V/S Special Causes

While at Bell Labs, Shewhart revolutionized their production process. This ensured greater
economic gains in the form of reducing the need for repair of the equipment the labs produced.
He referenced what constituted "common causes" and "special causes" of production issues.
He analyze these with his famed Shewhart charts or control charts, Walter Shewhart laid the
statistical foundation upon which all modern industry would be built.

"Common causes" in quality assessment is best represented by imagining one cursive printing
the word "cat," five times; it's natural to expect some minor variation from word to word, but in
general each attempt would appear relatively the same. Minor variations such as these are
considered "common causes" in the world of quality control.

If, on the other hand, during the writing process the writer is bumped and writes a skewed
letter, this variation in word is considered a "special cause" in the world of quality control. It's
the goal of Shewhart's control charts to identify and track these types of variations with the
intent to both monitor and identify possible patterns. This info supplies quality control
managers with the tools necessary to minimize and eliminate "special causes," which affects
the company’s bottom line.

Control Chart- The control chart is a graph used to study how a process changes over time.
Data are plotted in time order. A control chart always has a central line for the average, an
upper line for the upper control limit, and a lower line for the lower control limit. These lines
are determined from historical data. By comparing current data to these lines, you can draw
conclusions about whether the process variation is consistent (in control) or is unpredictable
(out of control, affected by special causes of variation). This versatile data collection and
 analysis tool can be used by a variety of industries and is considered one of the seven basic
quality tools.

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)
 When determining whether your quality improvement project should aim to
prevent specific problems or to make fundamental changes to the process 

PDCA cycle
PDCA (plan–do–check–act or plan–do–check–adjust) is an iterative four-step management method used
in business for the control and continual improvement of processes and products. It is also known as
the Deming circle/cycle/wheel, the Shewhart cycle, the control circle/cycle, or plan–do–study–act
(PDSA). Another version of this PDCA cycle is OPDCA. The added "O" stands for observation or as some
versions say: "Observe the current condition."
 Plan

Contineous
Act Do
improvement

Check

Continuous quality improvement with PDCA

Plan
During the plan phase, establish the objectives and processes necessary to deliver results in
accordance with the expected output (the target or goals). By establishing output
expectations ,the completeness and accuracy of the specification is also a part of the targeted
improvement. When possible start on a small scale to test possible effects .

Do
During the do phase, implement the plan, execute the process, make the product. Collect data
for charting and analysis in the following check and act steps.

Check
In the check phase, study the actual results (measured and collected in do phase above) and
compare against the expected results (targets or goals from the plan phase) to ascertain any
differences. Look for deviation in implementation from the plan and also look for the
appropriateness and completeness of the plan to enable the execution, i.e., the doing. Charting
data can make this much easier to see trends over several PDCA cycles and in order to convert
the collected data into information. Information is needed for the next step: act.
Act
If the check phase shows that the plan phase which was implemented in do phase is an
improvement to the prior standard (baseline), then that becomes the new standard (baseline)
for how the organization should act going forward (new standards are thus said to be enacted).
Instead, if the check phase shows that the plan phase which was implemented in do phase is
not an improvement, then the existing standard (baseline) will remain in place. In either case, if
the check phase showed something different than expected (whether better or worse), then
there is some more learning to be done... and that will suggest potential future PDCA cycles.
Note that some who teach PDCA assert that the act phase involves making adjustments or
corrective actions, but generally it would be counter to PDCA thinking to propose and decide
upon alternative changes without using a proper plan phase, or to make them the new
standard(baseline) without going through do and check steps