Lean Six Sigma

Fundamentals
ISEE – 582 / 682
Lecture 12A
Measure Phase - Data

Kinds of Data
Continuous
 Things we can measure
 Examples: height, weight,
pressure, time
 Needs units of measure
 Can take on fractional values
depending on the precision of
your instrument
 Look at the distribution of the
data with a histogram
 Use mean, median and mode as
measures of center
 Use standard deviation and
range as measures of variation
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Discrete
 Things we can count
 Only take on integer values
 Examples: # of females in the
room, # of traffic accidents campus
 Need to have a physical area or
amount of time as a boundary
 Can use a histogram to look at the
shape
 Can find the average number of
items per area
 Data tend to follow the Poisson
distribution

Kinds of Data
Things we can classify into 2
groups
 Pass/Fail, Heads/Tails,
Defective/Not Defective
 We record how many fall into
each group and the total number
of items inspected.
 The data tends to follow the
binomial distribution
 Calculating the % defective we
can use p-chart control charts to
observe the performance over
time
 Calculate average % defective
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Things we can classify into multiple
groups
 We can count how many of each
type of attribute is observed.
 Attribute according to age: less than
5 yrs old, 5<x<20, 20<x<50, >50.
 Grocery product defects as past sell
by date, dented, opened, crushed,
etc.
 This information can be shown with
the Pareto chart or a pie chart.
 Each item can fall into 1 and only
one group
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What do we do with the data?

Always Plot Your Data!
• Always Plot Your Data!
 Always Plot Your Data!
> Always Plot Your Data!
 Always Plot Your Data!
> Always Plot Your Data!
 Always Plot Your Data!
> Always Plot Your Data
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Working with Data

 We have details for 45 bags of M&M peanut candies
 Each bag was weighed on a scale that can only values in whole grams
 Each bag was opened and the number of candies of each color was
recorded

Which type of
data do the
weights
represent?
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Continuous Data
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Software Tool
 Minitab
• Full functional version:
 https://www.rit.edu/its/services/software-licensing/minitab

• Tutorial on use of tool is in the “Minitab Tutorial”

folder on MyCourses.
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Tool Topics
Tool Used for
Pareto Charts Defect frequency ranking
Histograms Frequency, centering and spread
Box Plots Non-parametric subgroup analysis
Time Series Plots Time ordered trend analysis
Scatter Plots Two variables (X-Y) analysis
Control Chart – Variable Variables data variation analysis
Control Chart – Attribute Attribute data variation analysis
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Pareto Charts
 Used to focus efforts on the
problem that offers the
greatest potential for
improvement.
 Helps team focus on causes
that have the greatest impact
 20% of sources cause 80% of
problem
 Displays the relative
importance in a simple format
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Histogram
 Summarize data collected over a
period of time.
 Provides quick estimate of the
process center, spread and shape.
 Shows relative frequency of
occurrence
 Helps answer if process is capable.
 Displays large amount of data that
is difficult to interpret in tabular
form.
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Box Plots
 Graphical summary of values to
help identify extreme values.
 Depicts measures of the
distribution that allows comparison
of various distributions
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Time Series Plot

 Allows team to study
observed data for trends or
pattern over a specified
period of time.
 Allows comparison of a
performance before and after
 Measures impact of a solution
that was implemented
 Predicts trends
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Scatter Plot
 Tells us if a linear relationship
exists between two variables.
If one does exist, this leads to
quantifying the strength and
direction of the association
via a correlation statistical
test.
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Control Charts
 Used to monitor, control and
improve process performance.
 Focus on detecting and monitoring
process variation
 Distinguishes special causes from
common causes
 Helps to improve process to
perform consistently and predictably
 Common language for discussing
process improvements
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Summary