What are the 7 Basic Quality Control Tools, Why we need to Know?

In the competitive business world, #Quality is a very important ‘quality’ for successful businesses to uphold. It is vital that customers are given products and services that are helpful for them and therefore worth every penny they pay. In order to be successful in business, you need to remember that customer satisfaction is always the most important goal.

To ensure the best possible products and services are sold to customers at a consistent level, businesses should take control and monitoring measures. It is also crucial to use the #7 basic quality control tools.

These implements can help maintain the consistency of the products and services being produced.

1.FISHBONE DIAGRAM / CAUSE & EFFECT DIAGRAM

• One of the most basic quality tool is the cause and effect diagram. It systematically represents the relations among effects and causes that affect them by using arrows.
• This helps employees discover the possible causes of problems or the factors that affect a desired outcome or goal. Each fish bone in the diagram represents a category.

2.CHECK SHEET

• Check Sheet is used for collecting data in the present time and in the actual location of the data.It useful for both quantitative and qualitative data. When quantitative data is being obtained, it is referred to as the tally sheet.
• Basic formats are followed that entail proper placement of pertinent information like who, what, when, where, and why. It can be used as a measure of probability distribution, as a checklist, and to quantify defects.

3.CONTROL CHART

• Control chart represents the transition of an item and shows whether the item is under control or not.
• Companies often use a control chart when it comes to Quality improvement and Cost analysis.This chart is used for monitoring and ensuring statistical control. It will have certain measurements and limits, and when the measurements go beyond limits, this will signal a variation. The chart is also useful for tracing the cause of any possible variation.

4.HISTOGRAMS

•  The histogram is used for showing a probability distribution graphically.
• The distribution of the collected data would be presented in the graph form. (BAR Chart)It can also be used to show frequency of certain categories or factors.

5.THE PARETO CHART

• Pareto Chart is a graph that bar charts which represent each item are sorted from left side in descending order of values, and that the cumulative frequency distribution curve (a line connecting the cumulative percentages up to each item) is also drawn.
• By drawing Pareto Chart, we can grasp to which degree each item have influence on the results. Concerning items with large impact, we can effectively manage them by applying different ways of management depending on the significance, for example, by intensively managing them as important management items. In general, items of which cumulative proportions reach approximately 80% are considered as important management items. (ABC analysis : Activity Based Costing analysis )

6.SCATTER DIAGRAM

• Scatter Diagram is a vital quality tool in which data of two items are plotted.
• This helps us grasp whether there is any relation among items and how the items are related to each other.

7.STRATIFICATION

• Stratification is a method of organizing data. It’s the process of separating data into meaningful groups. Stratification is also known as a flow chart or run chart.
• A flowchart can help you see the relationship between the process steps. You can use this information to optimize the process and to see where problems and defects can occur. Flowcharts are useful in process improvement projects or to document any process.

I hope you found some useful information about quality control and learned some helpful QC tools in this article..

Thanks

5S BALAMURUGAN