In today’s competitive market, it is essential for businesses to deliver high-quality products and services. Achieving this requires a systematic approach to quality management, which involves the use of quality tools. Quality tools include techniques, methods, and approaches to improve the quality of their products, processes, and services. These tools allow businesses to identify issues, analyze data, and implement solutions to enhance quality and efficiency.

This article will explore some of the best quality tools that businesses can use to optimize their quality management processes. It will cover what quality tools are, their specific benefits, and how to use them effectively. From statistical process control to Pareto charts, control charts, and histograms, a range of quality tools will be discussed that businesses can leverage to improve their processes and deliver high-quality products and services.

What are Quality Tools?

Quality tools help businesses improve their quality management processes and increase customer satisfaction. These tools can help reduce waste, optimize efficiency, and standardize processes. Standardization is particularly important in industries such as manufacturing, where even small variations in processes can affect product quality.

Quality tools include statistical process control, Pareto charts, control charts, histograms, and more. These are essential for any business serious about delivering high-quality products or services. 

The Best Quality Tools You Should Use

There are several quality tools available for businesses to use. 

• Statistical Process Control: One of the most commonly used is Statistical Process Control (SPC), which monitors processes and identifies variations in data. Businesses can use this to identify issues and implement solutions to optimize their processes. Variations in a process could result in defects, wasted resources, or other issues. By tracking these variations and identifying the root cause of the problem, businesses can implement corrective actions and optimize their processes for improved performance.

• Pareto Chart: A Pareto chart, another quality tool, visually represents the most significant issues that affect quality for a business and helps businesses prioritize their efforts in addressing them. The tool is named after Vilfredo Pareto who was an Italian economist, and is based on the concept that 80% of the issues affecting quality and efficiency are often caused by 20% of the problems.

• Histogram: A histogram is a graphical format that represents frequency distribution of data. It can help businesses identify patterns and valuable trends in data, making it useful for identifying quality issues. Businesses can start using a histogram by collecting data on their processes and analyzing it using statistical software. They can then use the histogram to visualize the data and identify any patterns, trends, or variations that may be affecting quality.

• Control Chart: These monitor processes over time and ensure that they remain within the expected range. Central to the chart are the upper and lower limits to monitor processes when they go out of control. To start using a control chart, a business first needs to gather data on their process over a period of time. They can then plot this data on a control chart, which allows them to visualize the data and identify any patterns or trends. 

Improving Quality and Driving Business Success with the Right Quality Tools: A Final Word

Quality tools are essential for businesses in all fields, as they enable them to improve quality, optimize their processes, and deliver high-quality products and services to their customers. With quality tools, businesses can monitor their performance, identify potential issues, and take corrective action before they become major problems. 

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Imagine big businesses such as GE (General Electric) that actually puts the customer first and foremost and makes a profit. In fact, GE takes customer service to a new level by keeping their promise of on-time delivery, great competitive prices, and putting out a great product based on what the customer wants or requires.

Key Core Concepts of Six Sigma

• Critical to Quality: Focuses on the attributes that are most important to the customer. 
• Defect: Failing to deliver what the customer wants.
• Process Capability: What your process can deliver.
• Variation: What the customer sees and feels.

All of the core concepts are very important, but the ones we are highlighting are ones that could be misunderstood, such as Critical to Quality (CTQ) and Variation. Let’s face it, if your customer isn’t getting what is important to him or her in your product or service, why would your customer continue doing business at your establishment? Getting what is important in the product is what your customer sees as quality. 

Variation in the product is never good; consistency is extremely important. Business processes should yield consistent products that are reliable. When Coca-Cola changed their flavor to the New Coke, there was an uproar. The consistent flavor of Coca-Cola that we all love is the reason we buy their product.

In a nutshell, if have adopted Six Sigma as your company culture, then everything that you do within your business should embrace Six Sigma’s customer-focused, data-driven philosophy. Otherwise, you won’t yield the results at its fullest.

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Pareto Analysis: This is a technique that helps determine which tasks make the most overall impact. This uses the Pareto Principal, which is also known as the 80/20 rule. It  translates to 20% of the work done generates 80% of the benefit of doing the entire process or job.

Broken down:

• 20% of your products or services account for 80% of customer complaints
• 20% of possible causes account for 80% of delays in the schedule
• 80% of your profits come from 20% of your product or services
• 80% of your company’s revenue is produced by 20% of your sales staff

Pareto Chart: This is a vertical bar chart that helps you automatically see by the descending order of the height of the bar and how to prioritize the problem. This can help in analyzing issues and identifying root causes.

Flowcharts: These are great and can be used in process mapping. Flow charts give a visual of work processes. Anyone can quickly see how and if there are duplicate efforts being done or what part of the process doesn’t offer value to the end product.

Check Sheets: These are used to collect data and keep an organized list of data.

Histograms: These are to quickly find variation in an existing process. The spikes in the histograms would show the variation. To create a histogram you need to:

• Collect the data having to do with the issue
• Prioritize the data
• Assign categories
• Create a bar chart
• Fill in counts and categories

Cause and Effect Diagrams: Also known as the fishbone or Ishikawa Diagram, these are used when a company team is involved in problem solving.  Brainstorming is a big component used for filling in the possible causes and effects. The cause and effect diagrams can be used in the service, manufacturing, or process steps, and any category that you need to visually see what would otherwise be a concept or verbal acknowledgement of a problem.

Learn more about these tools through one of our Six Sigma training classes! For more information on our Six Sigma training courses or services, visit 6sigma.com.

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The 7 quality tools include:

1. Stratification (Divide & Conquer): Here data is divided into smaller subcategories. These subcategories are divided into groups based on the information that they most cover, and the specific information given in these subgroups help solve an existing issue.
2. Histogram: These contain information on the frequency of specific occurrences that have to do with the issue needed to be resolved.
3. Check Sheet: An easy way to display both qualitative and quantitative data that is gathered for analysis; also called a tally sheet. This is great in understanding where in the progress that defect patterns happen.
4. Cause & Effect Chart (Fishbone or Ishikawa Diagram): This diagram is extremely useful in problem solutions as well as identifying the root causes for an issue.
5. Pareto Chart (80-20 Principle): This chart is based on 20% of causes resulting in 80% of effects. The Pareto charts help us visualize through the chart that the majority of end results come from a minority of actions or causes for defects.
6. Scatter Diagram: This is a mathematical chart that correlates a set of two variables for specific data.
7. Control Chart (Shewhart Chart): This is a great tool for observing all pertinent processes over time. This tool makes it easy to see the variation and pinpoint its occurrence.

These quality control tools help in gathering important data that will make quality improvement based on facts and not on arbitrary guesses. Keep in mind that the Voice of Customer (VOC) is of utmost importance since fulfilling the customer’s requirements is the reason you are in business, and without your customers, you won’t have a business or company.

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The Cost of Poor Quality

When your business has to rework or redo a product, you lose production costs. This includes delays, which leads to dissatisfied customers…which leads to loss of customers, which equates to no business.

Critical to Quality CTQs

These are parts of a process that have an important effect in the outcome of the process. If these are identified, this can be extremely important in dramatically reducing costs and improving and enhancing quality.

Remember DMAIC

Define: The process goals and customer deliverables (internal/external)
Measure: The said process for determining current performance level
Analyze: Determine the root cause or causes of current defects
Improve: The process by eliminating defects
Control: For maintaining future process performance

Each Six Sigma phase has a step-by-step template that is to be followed; for example, the Define phase would have:

1. Define customers and their requirements
2. Create a problem statement including goals and benefits when issues are solved
3. Identify all involved, process owner and team
4. Define resources
5. Access key support involved
6. Create project plan
7. Create detailed process map

The above is the step-by-step of the Define phase. The basic template is taken for the remaining Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control phases. This is in relation to quality and removal of errors.

Some of the Six Sigma tools that can be used include:

• Process Mapping
• Measurement System Analysis (MSA)
• Process Capability Tool
• XY Matrix
• Design of Experiments (DOE)

The processes for obtaining data are extensive, but it may mean the difference between success and failure of a business, and well worth the extra effort.

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As with all the data in Six Sigma, the first step is to state the problem or issue clearly and concisely. Make sure you state the problem as a problem and not like a solution. Keep in mind that you don’t yet know what solution will work to rid your problem.

Depending on your industry the categories could vary. With your team, agree and pick some categories that you could find the causes for the issue at hand. For example, categories in the service industry could be policy/rules/procedures or equipment/supplies, or perhaps environmental issues.

Make This a Time to Create Solutions as a Team

Then, along with your team, put your heads together and come up with possible causes of the problem. The best tool for finding the deep issue is 5 Whys tool. Keep asking, “Why does this happen” over and over until you can’t get any deeper. Along the way, you will probably make other discoveries in sub-categories, which will help you prevent future similar problems.

Inspire each of your team members to get involved in brainstorming since this is a perfect opportunity to encourage team morale. Too often, supervisors or team leaders look to place the blame on their team, and not to make them part of the solution.

Make sure each team member has a chance to give their opinion as to what they feel are the top three root causes. Record them on the fishbone diagram, and with the backup data vote on the top culprit.

*This is just an example of how you can use a fishbone diagram. It is abbreviated, but it should give you an idea of the mindset you need to have.

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Top 7 Six Sigma Quality Tools –

1.     Control Chart – One of Your Essential Control Tools

Quality improvement involves a lot of testing and documentation. As such, a control chart is a highly effective method by which to monitor and maintain statistical control. Control charts will help you remain aware of your measurements and limits, as well as pin down the causes of variation.

2.     Cause and Effect Diagram

Also known as Fishbone or Ishikawa Diagrams, CEDs give your employees the freedom to interrogate problems for their possible causes. Every fishbone branching off the spine of the diagram represents a different category, allowing you to question multiple lines of inquiry at once.

3.     Histograms – For Graphical Data Display

One of Six Sigma’s most commonly used tools, histograms display and make sense of data. You should use them to show probability distribution in graph form. Histograms are also useful for indicating the frequency with which factors affecting quality or process improvement appear. Histograms, like Pareto diagrams, represent data vertically and horizontally.

4.     Check Sheet – Asks the 5 Whys

Another frequently used quality tool, you should use check sheets for data collection. Check sheets collect and collate data in real time, when and where your data is located. You can spot problems and highlight trends with ease, as check sheets make analysis simpler. Taking the form of a physical document or as a computer program, check sheets allow you to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. Check sheets become tally sheets when dealing with quantitative data. Check sheets involve collating all relevant project or process information. Questions of Who, What, When, Where, and Why are used to measure probability distribution and quantify variation.

5.     Stratification

Six Sigma practitioners use stratification to classify data systematically. Stratification arranges information according to suitable categories, which you should devise for yourself, such as process, time, place, frequency, etc. Stratification is sometimes known as a flowchart and provides a visual template for how processes work. They can also identify your process customers.

6.     Scatter Diagram – Critical Quality Tools

A critical quality tool in Six Sigma, scatter diagrams allow you to show how two factors are related. Like cause and effect diagrams, scatter diagrams can display both causation and correlation, as well as the degree to which both appear. You can also test potential cause and effect relationships between multiple variables.

7.     Pareto Chart

Known as ABC analysis, Pareto charts are a classic of quality improvement work. Pareto charts are one of Six Sigma’s most highly utilized tools and used by companies all over the world. Pareto charts enable you to prioritize your most critical problems and the factors contributing to them. If a factor affects your business in a negative way, Pareto charts can help distinguish between the vital few and your trivial many are useful for identifying the most significant issues to tackle first.

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