An Overview of the Seven QC Tools

Seven QC Tools Description Pareto A diagram on which undersirable events or diagrams costs associated with items such as quality (e.g. number of defects or non-confirming products), productivity, cost, safety and so on are stratified according to their causes or manifestations and plotted in order Cause -andeffect diagram A diagram shaped like the bones of a fish for systematically summarizing the relationships between quality characteristics, defects etc. and their causes. Diagrams for plotting data and showing temporal changes, statistical breakdowns and relationships between different quantities. Method of use Remarks There may be large number of undersirable Plot the "Other" category at the phenomena or causes or trouble. The Pareto far right of the diagram and diagram makes it easy to see which of these ensure that it is not too large. have the most serious effect on quality, productivity, cost, safety etc. together with their relative proportions. Useful for searching out the factors that affect the characteristics, sorting out the relationships between these factors (causes) and the characteristics (the results), and depicting these systenatucally. Used for organizing data. Use line graphs for showing time trends, bar graphs for comparing quantities and pie charts for showing relative proportions. Gather the opinions of as many people as possible in order to flush out all the relevant factors.

Graphs and charts

Use solid lines, dotted lines, circles and corosses skillfully for clarity, Claify the objective and design a checksheet to suit it.

Checksheets

Forms specially prepared to enable data to Use for tallying the occurrence of the defects be collected simply by making check or causes being addressed and graphing or marks. charting them directly. Prepared by dividing the data range into subgroups and counting the number of points in each subgroup. The number of points (the frequency) is then plotted as a height on the diagram. Prepared by plotting paired sets of data such as hardness and tensile strength, temperature and yield, porosity and insulation resistance, etc. against each other on X and Y axes. Prepared by plotting time along the horizontal axis and a characteristic value on the vertical axis. Unlike line graphs, they also show the control limit lines.

Histograms

Prepare separate, stratified histograms for Use at least 30 values, each of the 4Ms and examine the relationships preferably aruond 100 between the shapes of the distributions and the specifications. Collect paired sets of data on causes and Use at least 30 values, 50 if effects, and use scatter diagrams to check for possible. correlation between the sets of data.

Scatter diagrams

Control charts

Use to check whether there are too many Think about the best method of chronic defets, too much variation, values stratification and pay close lying outside the control limits, or undesirable attention to subgrouping. trends or cycles. Control charts show whether or not a process is in control.