Simple Quality Improvement

Techniques for South Carolina

Businesses and Organizations

(C) Quality Minds Inc July 2009

All South Carolina Businesses and
Organizations Should Embrace
Continuous Improvement
• No business or organization should ever
rest on its laurels
• To stay ahead of your competition and to
survive in tough economic times, South
Carolina businesses and organizations
should continuously work to improve
quality of products and services, costs of
products and services, and delivery of
products and services
(C) Quality Minds Inc July 2009
A Simple Technique for Continuous
Quality Improvement
• TPAP is the acronym for the technique
– Trend Chart
• Shows performance over time
– Pareto Analysis
• Helps you focus on the vital opportunities for
improvement
– Action
• Take actions to improve quality
– Paynter Chart
• Verify quality improvement

(C) Quality Minds Inc July 2009

What are you trying to improve?
• Be clear on what you are trying to improve
• The “what” is often called the response
variable or “green Y”
• Make sure you can measure the response
variable

(C) Quality Minds Inc July 2009

 Create a Trend Chart of the
Response Variable
• A trend chart presents
data in a time sequence Trend Analysis of Shooting Percentage for an Eighth Grade Basketball Team

mode 50.00% Variable

FG Shooting %

• How has the response

Pe rce nt a ge of Shots Ma de in Ga me
Mean
45.00%
variable behaved over
time? Are there any 40.00%

patterns to the behavior? 35.00%

• Steps for Creating a
Trend Chart 30.00%
– Draw an x and y axis
– The time variable will be on the x 25.00%
axis and the response variable will
be on the y axis 20.00%
– Plot the response variable in the 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
time sequence of the data Game
– Interpret the chart

(C) Quality Minds Inc July 2009

Create a Pareto Diagram of the
Opportunities for Improvement
• 80/20 rule: Approximately 80% of
problems are caused by approximately
20% of problem categories
• A pareto diagram helps you focus on the
vital few opportunities for improvement
• The pareto diagram helps you best utilize
your resources. You will be working on
the right things.
(C) Quality Minds Inc July 2009
 How To Create a Pareto Diagram
Defect Total Percent of Cumulative Cumulative
Category Defectives Total Total Percent
• Step 1: Write the categories in Emulsion- 67 23.9 67 23.9
descending order along with the glue
amount for each category Oil/Dirt 59 21.1 126 45
• Step 2: Add up the amount to get a
total amount Hot melt- 30 10.7 156 55.7
glue
• Step 3: For each category, calculate
the percent of the total amount. (This Sewing
Thread
29 10.4 185 66.1
will be the height of each bar)
Gilding 28 10.0 213 76.1
• Step 4: Write a cumulative total beside defects
each category. (This will be used to End Sheet 25 8.9 238 85
plot the straight line on the Pareto
Diagram) Case 17 6.1 255 91.1
• Step 5: For each category, calculate Damage
the cumulative percentage Square 17 6.1 272 97.1
• Step 6: Create the pareto diagram. Variation

The height of each bar is the Head 6 2.1 278 99.3

percentage from step three. Draw in Bands

the cumulative line using the Upside 2 0.7 280 100.0

percentage from step five down
books
Total 280

(C) Quality Minds Inc July 2009

 Example of Pareto Diagram
Pareto Chart of Paint Defects

90 100

80
Number of Defectives

80
70
60

Percent
60
50
40 40
30
20 20
10
0 0
Paint Defects y ns s er r t r
ra ip te in he
S p Ru Dr il st la
t Pa
Ot
B
ht Sp Bad
Li g
Number of Defectives 30 25 11 10 7 5 4
Percent 32.6 27.2 12.0 10.9 7.6 5.4 4.3
Cum % 32.6 59.8 71.7 82.6 90.2 95.7 100.0

(C) Quality Minds Inc July 2009

Take Action on the Opportunity for Improvement
Using the PDCA Cycle of Improvement
Plan Avoid the “shot gun” approach. Have a plan.
Decide what you want to do and how you will do it.
You don’t know if it will work but put your best foot
forward. Think ahead to the check phase and
decide now how you will measure results.

You have planned, done, and

checked. Now you must
decide what to do with the
results of your check. The
Act Do Once you have a plan, carry out
options typically include: the change or test on a small
Adopt the change Continuous scale to minimize disruption to
Abandon it and go back to Improvement of normal activity. Example: Don’t
the drawing board Work Processes run a trial (with a process
Run it through the cycle change) for an entire week. If it
again using a different area, fails, the costs could be high. Try
running a larger scale trial, or it on a smaller scale (ex. one half
making the trial more shift) first. It is important to do
complex. something. The best plans are
Start over at the planning worthless if they are not carried
phase out.

Check
In the Plan phase, you should have decided how to measure the results of
the Do phase. After completing the Do phase, check to see if the changes
or tests are working (What did you learn? What went right? What went
wrong? What does the data mean?)

(C) Quality Minds Inc July 2009

 The Structure of Improvement
Actions
• What is the action?
• Who is responsible for the action?
• When will the action be completed?

(C) Quality Minds Inc July 2009

 Verify the Improvement Action
• There must be a process Defect Day
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
for monitoring the
effectiveness of Emulsion C
-glue 7 6 3 0 0 0 0 0 0
improvement action.
– Simply put, the problem Oil/Dirt C
must not be seen after the 3 4 5 7 10 13 0 0 0
action is taken. Hot Melt
• Paynter chart is a great glue

tool for verifying Sewing

improvement action. Thread

Gilding
Defects

(C) Quality Minds Inc July 2009

Quality Team Improvement Boards
• Sometimes called story boards
• Used to summarize the activities of quality improvement
teams
• There is no set format. It is left to the creativity of the
team.
• Keep it simple-I suggest the following:
– Trend Chart
– Pareto Chart
– Process Flow Diagram
– 5W2H Problem Definition
– Fishbone Diagram
– Nominal Technique
– Corrective Action (PDCA)
– Paynter Chart
(C) Quality Minds Inc July 2009
 Team Story Board
Exteme Values

30 Fishbone Diagram
Trend
20
10
0
M T W Th F Sa S M T

100

90

80

Cumulative Percentage of Total Defectives

Pareto
70
Percent of Total Defectives

60

50

40

30
Nominal Technique
20

10

0
Emulsion-Glue Oil/Dirt Hot Melt-Glue Sewing Thread Gilding Defects

T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T
Process
Flow
Who
What Action Plan Paynter Chart
Plan M T W Th
When
5W2H Where
Defect 8 5 6C 0
Act Do
Why
How Detected
How Many Check

(C) Quality Minds Inc July 2009