Problem Solving Toolsby Susan Anggraeni

Jul 2008

Cause-and-Effect Diagram(Fishbone Diagram)

It is used :

• to look at effects and the causes that contribute to those effects.

• to assist teams in categorizing the many potential causes of problems or issues in an orderly way and in identifying root causes.

Cause-and-Effect Diagram(Fishbone Diagram) e.g.

Cause-and-Effect Diagram(Fishbone Diagram) (cont.)

Fishbone diagram is used when the team :• Need to study a problem/issue to determine the

root cause. • Want to study all the possible reasons why a

process is beginning to have difficulties, problems, or breakdowns.

• Need to identify areas for data collection. • Want to study why a process is not performing

properly or producing the desired results.

Flowchart

It is used to :

• Visualize the flow of a process.

• See the flaws in the process.

• Locate the responsibility for performing an action or making a decision correctly, allowing the relationship between different organizational units with responsibility over a single process.

Flowchart e.g.

Pareto Diagram

• Pareto diagrams are named after Vilfredo Pareto, an Italian sociologist and economist, who invented this method of information presentation toward the end of the 19th century.

• It is similar to the histogram or bar chart.• The difference is here the bars are

arranged in decreasing order from left to right along the abscissa.

Pareto Diagram

It is used to :

• Arrange information in such a way that priorities for process improvement can be established.

• Display the relative importance of data.

• Direct efforts to the biggest improvement opportunity by highlighting the vital few in contrast to the useful many.

Pareto diagram e.g.

Histogram

It is used to :• Graphically summarize and display the

distribution of a process data set.

It can be constructed by segmenting the range of the data into equal sized bins (also called segments, groups or classes). For example, if your data ranges from 1.1 to 1.8, you could have equal bins of 0.1 consisting of 1 to 1.1, 1.2 to 1.3, 1.3 to 1.4, and so on.

Histogram e.g.