7 Basic Quality Tools

1. Cause-and-effect diagram (also called Ishikawa or fishbone chart): Identifies many possible
causes for an effect or problem and sorts ideas into useful categories.
a. A graphic tool that helps identify, sort, and display possible causes of a problem or
quality characteristic.
b. Cause and effect diagrams (or fishbone or Ishikawa diagrams) graphically document the
causes of a single effect.
c. Useful for determining root cause(s) of a problem.
2. Check sheet: A structured, prepared form for collecting and analyzing data; a generic tool that
can be adapted for a wide variety of purposes.
a. Check sheets are forms used to summarize a tally count of event occurrences.
b. Count the number of occurrences, such as defects, for an event (e.g. inspection, audit etc.)
3. Flowchart : A diagram that uses graphic symbols to depict the nature and flow of the steps in a
process
a. Flowcharts are a visual diagram of a process broken down by activities.
b. Document processes as they flow from start to finish and they show how each step is
related.
4. Histogram: The most commonly used graph for showing frequency distributions, or how often
each different value in a set of data occurs.
a. Histograms are a graphic representation of the frequency of occurrence sorted into
categories of a defined range.
b. Helpful for displaying the distribution of data columns relative to another.
5. Pareto chart: Shows on a bar graph which factors are more significant.
a. Pareto charts prioritize data from highest occurrence to lowest.
b. They identify the vital few catagories that account for the largest relative frequencies
and separate the trivial many.
c. Depict the 80/20 rule (orig. postulated by Vilfredo Pareto) which is 20% of the factors
account for 80% of potential problems.
6. Scatter diagram: Graphs pairs of numerical data, one variable on each axis, to look for a
relationship.
a. Scatter diagrams are used to determine if there is any correlation between two variables.
b. Useful in the quantitative analysis of data to see how a variable behaves relative to
another variable.
7. Control charts : Graphs used to study how a process changes over time.
a. Control charts are a very powerful quality tool to recognize sources of variation over
time.
b. Useful to monitor and help improve process performance over time by studying variation
and its source.
c. Distinguish special from common causes of variation.
d. Serves as a guide to make adjustment decisions