ASQ CQA – 5. Quality Tools and Techniques

1. 5A Basic Quality and Problem Solving Tools – Introduction

We have completed four sections so far. Section one was auditing fundamentals. There we talked about some basics related to auditing, the types of auditing, audit criteria, ethics and so many other things. From that section, which is section one you should be expecting 28 questions out of 150 questions in the exam. So 28 questions will be coming from section one.

Section two was audit process. There we talked about conducting audit, we talked about planning audit, we talked about doing audit at site, we talked about reporting and we talked about follow up. So that was the whole audit process which was covered. In section two, this was the biggest section and from that you should be expecting 44 questions. Then after that, in section three we talked about auditor competencies.

There we talked about what skills auditors need to have and what skills auditors need to develop. There we talked about things such as conflict resolution, team stages and presentations and many other things. From that section, which is section three, auditor competencies. You should be expecting 24 questions in the exam. Then in section four we talk about audit program management. Here we were talking about the managing the program at the higher level.

From that section, which is section four, you should be expecting 30 questions. So this is something which we have covered so far. Now we are coming to the next section which is section Five, quality Tools and Techniques. From this section, which is section five, you should be expecting 24 questions in the exam. In this section we will be talking about number of quality tools. Some of those you will be using as an auditor to analyze the data, to understand the data. And some of these you will be seeing how auditing uses that.

So when auditing presents you with the corrective action plan, then auditing would be using some of these tools. So you need to understand these tools. So let’s look at the lesson plan, what we will be learning in section Five. In section Five, these are the topics which we will learn. The first one is basic quality and problem solving tools. So here we will be talking about nine tools. You would have learned about seven basic quality tools. So we will be talking about some of those and few others in this section, which is basic quality and problem solving tools.

Then we will talk about process improvement techniques. Here we will be talking about six sigma and lean, some basic concepts related to these. Then next we will talk about basic statistics, where we will be talking about how to find out mean, mode, median and standard deviation. The next will be process variation, understanding the common causes and special causes of the variation.

That’s something which will be learning in process variation. And then we will talk about sampling method, which is a very important topic for auditors. How do you sample, what type of sampling you could use when you are auditing a process. The next we will talk about change control and configuration management and then verification and validation. And the last topic will be risk management tools. So these are eight subtopics which we will be discussing in quality tools and techniques.

2. 5A1 Pareto Chart

In quality tools and techniques. The first topic is basic quality tools and problem solving tools. In this we will be talking about these nine tools which are pareto chart, cause and effect diagram flowcharts, statistical process control, check sheet scuttle diagram histogram root cause analysis and PDCA or Plan do check act. Let’s start with Pareto chart in this video. Now what’s Pareto chart? Pareto Chart is a bar chart. So here you will see number of bars, vertical bars which are arranged in a descending order. Descending order means the highest one as the first bar and then the smaller and the smaller and so on. So this will be the shape of a Pareto chart. We will look at an example of Pareto chart on the next slide. But let’s understand what this chart is and why do we use this chart? This chart is used to prioritize actions. So if you have a number of actions which you can take number of things you could choose from. So this chart will help you in sorting out the vital few from the trivial. Manny, there is a rule called as 80 20 rule in the context of quality.

What does this means is that 80% of the problems are caused by 20% causes. So if you focus on those 20% causes you can remove 80% problems from the system. So rather than working on all the problems, you just focus on the critical one or the vital fuse. Now let’s look at an example of this. So here is an example. On the left is a check sheet and check sheet is also a tool which we will be discussing. This is tool number five in this list. This checklist is about a bottling plant. In the bottling plant we have three lines which are producing three volumes of bottle. So we have one line which is producing water bottles with the 300 ML we have another line which is filling 500 milliliter bottles and then we have a third line which is filling 1000 milliliter volume in the bottles.

So these are three production lines. Now what we do is we look at the problems in each of these lines. So the problems related to water bottles are scratch, loose cap, the wrong label on that the volume more or less the leakage in the water bottle. So these are the types of problems which we have in these production lines. I will talk about the details of this check sheet later on when we come to tool number five. But let’s understand at this moment that 300 milliliter bottles there were eleven problems.

There were two problems related to scratch, there were two problems related to lose cap, four problems related to the wrong label, one problem related to volume and one problem related to leakage. Similarly, when we looked at 500 milliliter production line there were twelve problems, in 1000 milliliter production line there were 13 problems and these are the frequencies.

So in 1000 ML there were eleven problems related to loose cap one problem related to level and one problem related to leakage. Now, these are the problems which we have. So what we do in Pareto chart is we want to find out what are the vital few problems? We want to separate vital few from trivial many. And what we did here is we plotted a pareto chart. So this is the pareto chart. Here, pareto chart tells you what is the frequency of the problem and what’s the problem? So if you look here lose cap is 18 number of problems label is eight number of problems without going into much complication of pareto chart just by looking at this.

What I would think is that if I solve these two problems out of five problems, if I just focus on two problems, then I can solve a majority of problems. A lot of problems will go away just by working on these two things on loose cap and the label. And that’s what Pareto chart helps you in finding out. So here is the Parato chart. The first bar, which is loose cap, which is 18. Numbers out of 36. 36 are total number of problems. So that means 50% problems are coming because of loose cap. And that’s what you see here. 50% is the loose cap, then wrong label is 22%, 22% is eight. Divided by 36, this gives you 22% problems. In addition to plotting frequency, what you do is you plot the cumulative frequency as well. Cumulative is sum off.

So let’s say starting with the first one, the frequency was 50%. The cumulative frequency will also be 50%. In the second case, the frequency was 22%. But the cumulative frequency will be 50, which was the previous one, plus 22, which is 72. 2. So this is the point which is 72. 2%. So in the next one scratch, we add the three things prior to this. So we add 50 plus 22. 2 plus 13. 9, which will give me 86. 1. So 86. 1 is the cumulative frequency, which is plotted here. 86. 1.

Now what? You do in Pareto chart is you plot a line at 80%. Let’s plot a line at 80%. Whatever is below this, you work on those problems. So what you want to do is you want to work on those. Causes which are creating 80% problems. So here in this case, if we just work on these two problems, basically by eliminating these two problems, we will be solving seven 2. 2% of the.