Dr. Deming was amazing, but who was his teacher? Who produced the PDCA Cycle? Who conceived of Statistical Process Control? The modest man behind the scenes, another fascinating product of the Hawthorne Works, was none other than Walter Shewhart. This year would have marked Walter Shewhart’s 129th birthday – truly…
The Control Chart Decision Tree provides a visual method of figuring out which Control Chart to use given the data being plotted. The chart begins by asking whether the data is continuous or discrete and continues on either side of the tree with a series of branches based on the…
Traditionally, everyone in the process improvement world references the Seven Basic Quality Tools which were promoted by Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa back in the 1950s. Dr. Ishikawa was influenced by Dr. Deming, another quality great, and these are still a very good set of quality tools. But times have changed and…
Control Charts are time charts designed to display signals or warnings of special cause variation. Special cause variation, as distinct from common cause variation, refers to changes in process performance due to sporadic or rare events indicating that a process is not "in control." The advantage of Control Charts is that they enhance…