BUS4101-3

Traditional Quality Tools

Quality management tools help businesses improve quality, productivity, and customer satisfaction. The following are some

traditional quality tools:

A Pareto Chart is a bar graph in which the lengths of the bars represent frequency or cost of a problem. This chart shows problems

that are more signi�cant than others. Organizations can use Pareto charts to analyze data to identify and focus on the most frequent or costly problem, allowing the organizations to decide where to allocate limited resources.

A Cause-and-Effect (Fishbone) Diagram is used to identify the possible causes for an effect, or problem. It can be successfully used in

a brainstorming session to sort ideas into useful categories.

A Check Sheet is a structured form for collecting relevant data and presenting it in an easy-to-understand format. Check sheets are

useful for data that is observed and collected repeatedly by the same person or at the same location, in order to analyze data on the

frequency or patterns of problems.

A Histogram helps to identify the frequency of a particular set of problems over speci�c time frames. Organizations can use

histograms to analyze numerical data, and to determine whether the output of a process is distributed normally, can meet customer

requirements, and is steady over time.

A Scatter Diagram is used to determine the correlation between two variables. It can also be used when the dependent variable may

have multiple values for each value of the independent variable. For example, after brainstorming causes and effects, an organization

can use the scatter diagram to determine whether a cause and an effect are related.

A Run Chart is used to analyze the performance data of a process over a time. However, the run chart does not help in identifying whether the variations in data are caused by special causes or common causes.

A Control Chart is another traditional quality tool, but is the only such tool that requires a certain level of familiarity with statistics. 

It is similar to a run chart, but it has a central line for determining the average, an upper line for determining an “upper control limit,”

and a lower line for determining a “lower control limit.” By comparing current data to these lines, it is possible to identify whether the

variations in data are caused by special causes or common causes.

A control chart can be used when controlling ongoing processes, when predicting the expected range of outcomes of a process, or when determining the stability of a process. It is also useful in analyzing patterns of process variation from special causes or common

causes. Finally, it is useful in determining whether a quality improvement project should aim to prevent speci�c problems or to make

fundamental changes in the process.