Practical tips for quality management to solve everyday business problems.
With the rapid spread of the quality movement, many people are spending a lot of time and energy implementing quality management within their own organizations. However, they are often disappointed to find that it is difficult to know which quality tools and techniques are best for which specific situations.
Here are a few quality tools and how they can be used to solve everyday business problems. The discussion of each tool includes the following: when to use it, when not to use it, training, what can be achieved, precautions and procedures.
Fishbowl Meeting
It's a way of organizing a meeting. In a spirit of collaboration, different groups share their perspectives and information. So it can work if you have the sales department meet with the customer service department, or the top management with the management consultant.
When to use: Fishbowl meetings allow certain groups to communicate more with other stakeholders such as customers, businessmen, and managers.
When not to use it: It should not be used if the responsibilities of the various groups are not clearly distinguished.
Training: Meeting conveners are required to be trained.
What can be achieved: Quickly increase understanding and clear up misunderstandings.
Note: These types of meetings can be very impactful. It can expose the truth and make insiders and bystanders feel threatened, so it needs to be carefully organized.
Use the program: Arrange the participants into two circles, inside and outside. The inner circle is more active, while the outer circle is observing, listening, and providing information when necessary. At the end of the meeting, the improvement plan was recommended and the approval of the people in the outer circle was obtained.
Lateral thinking
It's a tool for finding new solutions to old problems.
When to use it: Use it when you need to find new methods and new ideas because old methods and ideas no longer work or are not good enough.
When not to use it: Don't use it when constraints prevent this new way of thinking from working.
What you can achieve: Generate new ideas, spark ideas, and find feasible solutions.
Precautions: Requires traditional logical thinking to support it. Edward suggests that only 10% of problem-solving processes are laterally considered.
Use the program: Identify the problem. Use humor, shuffleness, and challenging popular ideas to develop lateral thinking solutions. Appropriate refinement and trade-offs of the various ideas found.
For example, the traditional market for an industrial sewing bobbin manufacturer had disappeared and the company had to find another way. In this regard, the instinctive reaction of the company's managers is to start from the conventional way of thinking and find a new way out, a new market or a new means of sales for the product. However, developments soon showed that they needed a radical solution.
The company held a brainstorming session with no framework for the participants. Ideas should be able to use existing skills and experience, but only as a starting point. As a result, lateral thinking led them to golf and became a successful golf ball manufacturer.
Pareto analysis
This approach emphasizes identifying the key causes for 80% of the problems (typically 20%).
When to use it: This method can be used whenever there are multiple variables in the creation of a problem and the most critical factors need to be identified. This is especially useful at the beginning of an improvement project.
When not to use it: If you have a better system, you don't need to use this method.
Training: Basic statistical knowledge is required for analysis.
What can be achieved: A very visual representation of how to prioritize problems and where to focus resources for the best benefit. This kind of display allows all levels of the enterprise to understand at a glance.
Note: It is always important to analyze the results carefully;It's not just about data, it's about using common sense to find out the cause and prioritization of problems.
Use the program: Find out the problem and possible causes. Gather information about the cause. Draw a Pareto analysis diagram with the abscissa representing the cause and the ordinate representing the problem, expressed in terms of the number of occurrences, frequency, or cost incurred. Find out the most critical reasons. Ranked by importance, use improved technology to eliminate the cause of the problem.
For example, a washing machine manufacturer has a quality crisis. In an extensive credibility test, a major magazine ranked its product at the bottom and advised consumers not to buy it.
The company has a well-established record of errors, with 22 types of errors listed. However, the Pareto analysis shows that only 4 of these errors accounted for 83% of all records.
Quality Functional Distribution Map (QFD).
It is a product and process design tool that can be used to translate the voice of the customer into the characteristics of the product or process. Adopting this approach prevents companies from implementing ideas simply because they appear to be valid.
When to use: To design or redesign a product or process to ensure that it provides the product features that customers actually need;Designed for the manufacturing industry, but can also be used in the service industry.
When not to use it: Don't take this approach if the issues are already prioritized, the process design is effective, or the design team is experienced.
Training: This method uses specific conventions to establish relevant matrices and scoring criteria. Training is necessary in this regard.
What can be achieved: The ability to distinguish between basic and desired product and process features allows you to see where a high-cost technology or engineering investment will pay off. It also provides a framework for assessing the impact of changes in a product or process.
Do's and don'ts: Take the time to do market research to find out what your customers really want.
Use the program: Research the needs of the customer. Find out the process design features that match the customer's needs. Create a matrix that compares the customer's needs with the design features (i.e., the Performance Matrix) and scores them. Select about 5 design features with the highest scores, and then establish a matrix diagram according to 3 levels: design features and key component characteristics, key component characteristics and manufacturing processes, manufacturing processes and production requirements.
For example, a lawn mower manufacturer spent time and money redesigning the control performance of its best-selling lawn mower, only to find that customers were unresponsive. As a result, when company managers are planning to improve another older model, they want to make sure that the improvements they make are exactly what the customer wants.
The results of the study show that customers are interested in performance. Therefore, improving the efficiency of the motor, drive chain and knife can have a much greater impact than improving the control performance.
Correlation tree diagram
This graphical tool classifies related items hierarchically. It's a great thinking tool because it provides a quick way to summarize ideas and add details as soon as the relevant forks appear.
When to use: Use this diagram to find many different ways to achieve the same goal.
When not to use: Not available for a detailed comparison of scenarios. It is only used to explore new directions in general.
Training: No formal training is required, but it can be helpful to have a facilitator.
What can be achieved: The diagram provides a logical indication of what methods should be used to achieve the goals and what actions and resources they require.
Note: If your method doesn't stand up to analysis, be prepared to go back to the correlation tree.
For example, a small growing company uses this approach to consider childcare for its employees. Many employees joined the company right out of college and are now supporting their children.
Companies meet to discuss options. As a result, there was support for the construction of a day-care centre. But the tree diagram shows that the potential costs are too high and there are too many local regulations to meet to implement. So the company opted for a childcare allowance program to give employees with children a choice.
Solution effect analysis
This type of chart is used to analyze the possible effects of the solution at hand.
When to use it: Use this method when proposing change. It allows you to see the effects of each solution.
When not to use it: Don't use what you're proposing if it's not a fundamental change.
Training: No formal training is required, but it can be useful if supplemented.
What can be achieved: A forward-looking mindset that anticipates the impact of the proposed solution and avoids unforeseen effects.
Don't stop people when they're pessimistic about the prospects for change you're working towards. They didn't mean to make trouble, maybe they were right. Receiving counselling will reduce your sense of threat.
Use the program: Make a note of the solution you are considering implementing and place it on the left side of the diagram with the arrow pointing to the right. Use the spin arrows on either side of the main arrow to highlight a variety of significant effects. Brainstorm all possible effects and add them to the diagram. Actions are planned to be implemented to ensure that the programme is effective.
For example, a company decides to introduce flexible working hours to reduce the time lost by employees on their commute while making the best use of resources. As the deadline for switching to new working hours approached, the HR department, which coordinated the change, began to worry that employees had yet to figure out what it meant to work new hours. To this end, the company held a series of analysis sessions to enable the company's employees to figure out various issues and thus be more prepared for the introduction of new working hours.