Tools and Techniques

Chapter 8

Objectives

• After going through this chapter, you will be able to understand:– Get acquainted with Quality Control Tools and Techniques– Understand detail use of Quality Tools,– Gain knowledge Of quality Improvement,– Understand use of Six sigma in Health Care industry.

Flow Charting

• A Flow chart is schematic diagram of the sequence of steps involved in an operation or process. It

• presents a visual tool that is easy to use and understand. By seeing the steps involved in operation or

• process, everyone develops a clear picture of how the operation works and were problem could arise.

• A graphical representation of the sequence of steps needed to produce any output.

Flow Charting

• The output may be a physical product, a service, information or combination of all three. Basic symbols of flow diagram are specific to function these symbols are explained below and in the next slide –

Flow Charting

Brain Storming

• Techniques for generating constructive and creative ideas from all participants. Use of this tool should provide new ideas or new applications and novel use of existing ideas. Brain storming technique is given below:– Step 1: Good ideas are not are parsed or endorsed. All

suspended initially in preference generating ideas.– Step 2: Thinking must be unconventional, imaginative, or

even outrageous, self-criticism and judgment are suspended.

Brain Storming

• Techniques for generating constructive and creative ideas from all participants. Use of this tool should provide new ideas or new applications and novel use of existing ideas. Brain storming technique is given below:– Step 3: To discover analytical or critical thinking, team

members are instructed to aim for a large number of ideas in shortest possible time.

– Step 4: Team members should hitchhike on other ideas , by expanding them, modifying them or producing new ones by association

Pareto Analysis

• A Pareto analysis is a technique used to identify quality problems on their degree of importance. The logic behind Pareto analysis is that only a few quality problems are important where as many other are not critical.

• The technique was named after Vilfredo Pareto a nineteenth century Italian economist who determined that only a small percentage of people controlled most of the wealth.

Pareto Analysis

• This concept has often been called the 80:20 rule and has extended to many areas. In quality management the logic behind Pareto’s principle is that most quality problems are a result of only a few causes. The trick is to identify this cause.

• This is a tool used to establish priorities dividing contributing efforts into the “vital few” and “useful many”.

Pareto Analysis

• A Pareto diagram includes three basic elements as mentioned below.– (a) The contributors to the total effort, ranked by the

magnitude of contribution,– (b) The magnitude of the contribution of each expressed

numerically,– (c) ‘The cumulative percentage of total percentage of total

effect of the ranked contributors.

Cause and Effect Diagram

• Cause and Effect is developed by Kaoru Ishikawa. This analysis tool is frequently called as the Ishikawa diagram. Its purpose is to organize and display interrelationship of various theories of root cause of problem

• By focusing on the problem causes of a specific problem in constructed, systematic way, the diagram enables a quality control team to clarify its thinking about those potential causes and enables the team to work more productively towards discovering the true root cause or causes.

The Generic Fish Born Diagram

• Cause and effect analysis is done by use of tool called Ishikawa Diagram as explained above. Ishikawa diagram is also called fish bone diagram because they looks like the bones of a fish.

• A general cause and effect diagram is shown in the next slide. The head of fish is quality problem. The diagram is drawn such a way that the spine of the fish connects “head” to the possible causes of the problem.

The Generic Fish Born Diagram

• These causes could be related to machines, workers, measurement, suppliers, materials and many other aspects of the process.

• Each of these possible causes can then have smaller “bones that address specific issues that related to each cause.

The Generic Fish Born Diagram

The Generic Fish Born Diagram

• Scattered Diagrams are that show how two variables related to one another.

• They are particularly useful to detecting the amount of correlation or degree of linear relationship between two variables.

• For example increased production speed and number of defects could correlate positively, as production speed increases, so does the number of effects.

The Generic Fish Born Diagram

• The greater the degree of correction; more linear are the observations in the scatter diagram. On the other hand, more scattered the observations in the diagram, less correlation exist between the variables.

• Other types of correlation ships are also be observed on a scatter diagram for example inverted U. This may be the case when one is observing the relationship between two variables such as oven temperature and number of defects, since temperature below and above the ideal could lead to defect.

Business Analysis

• As the scope of business analysis is very wide, there has been a tendency for business analysts to specialize in one its strategic direction, and identifying initiatives that will allow a business to meet those strategic goals like Creating and maintaining the business architecture, Conducting feasibility studies

• Identifying new opportunities of the three sets of activities which constitute the scope of business analysis, the primary role of business analysis is to identify business needs and provide solutions to business problems.

Process of Re-engineering

• Process Re-engineering (PR) is basically rethinking and drastically redesigning an organization’s existing resources.

• PR, however, is more than just business improvising; it is an approach for redesigning the way work is done to better support the organization’s mission and reduce costs. Re-engineering starts with a high-level assessment of the organization’s mission, strategic goals, and customer needs.

Process of Re-engineering

• As a structured ordering of work steps across time and place, a business process be decomposed into specific activities, measured, modeled, and improved

• It can also be completely designed or eliminated altogether. Re-engineering identifies, analyzes, and re-designs an organization’s business processes with the aim of achieving striking improvements in critical performance such as cost, quality, service, and speed.

Bench Marking and Its Types

• Companies implement Continuous improvements by studying business practices of companies considered best in class.

• This is called Bench Marking things is an important part of continuous improvement. The ability to learn and study how other do things is an important part of Continuous improvement.

• The Bench Marked Company does not need to be in the same business, as long as it excels at something that the company doing the study wishes to emulate.

Kaizen Concept

• Good change means kaizen, meaning of either “continuous” or “philosophy” in Japanese dictionaries in everyday use.

• The kaizen refers to any improvement, one-time or continuous, large or small, in the same sense as the English word “improvement”. However, given the common practice in Japan of labeling industrial or business improvement techniques with the word “kaizen”

Kaizen Concept

• The format for kaizen can be individual, suggestion system, small group, or large group.

• Kaizen on a broad, cross-departmental scale in companies, generates TQ, and frees human efforts through improving productivity using machines and computing power.

• While kaizen usually delivers small improvements, the culture of continual associated small improvements and standardization yields large results in terms of overall improvement in productivity.

Deming Wheel — PDCA Cycle

• Plan — Do — Check — Act (Pl)CA) cycle describes the activities a organization need to perform in to incorporate continuous improvement in its operation.

• This action is shown in figure below is also called as Fleming wheel or Shewhart cycle.

• Circular nature of this cycle shows that a continuous improvement is a never ending process. Following are the steps involved in the cycle.

Deming Wheel — PDCA Cycle

Deming Wheel — PDCA Cycle

• Step 1: Plan: Managers must evaluate the current process and make plan based on any problems they find.

• Step 2: Do (Implementation): In this step it needs to implement the plan prepared in planning.

• Step 3: Check: The third step is to check the data collected during the implementation (Do) phase.

• Step 4: Act: The last phase of the cycle is to act on the basis of the results of first three phases.

Six-Sigma Concept in Health Care Industry

• Six- Sigma is a group of techniques and tools for process improvement. Six-Sigma seeks to improve the quality of process Outputs by identifying and removing the causes of defects (errors) and minimizing inconsistency ¡n production and business activities.

• It uses quality management methods, including statistical methods, and creates a special infrastructure of people within the organization (“Champions”, “Black Belts”, “Green Belts, “Yellow Belts”, etc.) who are experts in these methods.

Six-Sigma Concept in Health Care Industry

• The term Six Sigma start from terminology associated with manufacturing. The maturity of a manufacturing process can be described by a sigma rating indicating its perfection ¡n manufacturing.

• A six sigma process is one in which 99.99966% of the products manufactured are statistically expected to be free of defects (3.4 defective parts/million). The term “six sigma” comes from statistics and is used in Statistical Quality Control, which evaluates process capability.

Six-Sigma Concept in Health Care Industry

• Health care industry’s traditional reliance on external and internal inspection to maintain quality has its expected effects on performance. The extensive inspections are very costly, but are agreed to, by provides and outsiders alike, as the best they can do.

• Reviews do tend to call attention to serious problems, some of which are remedied correctly, and others which invite overreactions that have probably added to the cost complexity of care without much gain in quality or efficiency.

Six-Sigma Concept in Health Care Industry

• Features that set Six Sigma apart from previous quality improvement initiatives include – (a) A clear focus on achieving measurable and quantifiable

financial returns from any Six Sigma project. – (b) An increased emphasis on strong and passionate

management leadership and support. – (e) A clear commitment to making decisions on the basis of

verifiable data and statistical methods, rather than assumptions and guesswork.

END

Chapter 8