1. Fishbone Diagram (At Least Four Potential Causes)

EXAMPLE

Here we Construct EACH of the following in a single document. Each tool should mirror a process in your workplace (it does not have to be the same process for all these tools).

1. Fishbone diagram (at least four potential causes)

2. House of quality (at least three customer requirements)

3. Needs analysis (at least four needs)

4. FMEA (identify at least four potential failures)

5. SERVQUAL (identify at least two items to measure in each dimension)

6. Decision tree or decision table (at least three options)

1.Fishbone diagram (at least four potential causes):-

Also Called: Cause–and–Effect Diagram, Ishikawa Diagram

The fishbone diagram identifies many possible causes for an effect or problem. It can be used to structure a brainstorming session. It immediately sorts ideas into useful categories.

When to Use a Fishbone Diagram

• When identifying possible causes for a problem.
• Especially when a team’s thinking tends to fall into ruts.

Fishbone Diagram Procedure

Materials needed: flipchart or whiteboard, marking pens.

1. Agree on a problem statement (effect). Write it at the center right of the flipchart or whiteboard. Draw a box around it and draw a horizontal arrow running to it.
2. Brainstorm the major categories of causes of the problem. If this is difficult use generic headings:
3. Methods (process)
4. Machines (equipment)
5. People (manpower)
6. Materials (Includes Raw Material, Consumables and Information)
7. Measurement(Inspection)
8. Environment
9. Write the categories of causes as branches from the main arrow.
10. Brainstorm all the possible causes of the problem. Ask: “Why does this happen?” As each idea is given, the facilitator writes it as a branch from the appropriate category. Causes can be written in several places if they relate to several categories.
11. Again ask “why does this happen?” about each cause. Write sub–causes branching off the causes. Continue to ask “Why?” and generate deeper levels of causes. Layers of branches indicate causal relationships.
12. When the group runs out of ideas, focus attention to places on the chart where ideas are few.

Fishbone Diagram Example

This fishbone diagram was drawn by a manufacturing team to try to understand the source of periodic iron contamination. The team used the six generic headings to prompt ideas. Layers of branches show thorough thinking about the causes of the problem.

Fishbone Diagram Example

Ishikawa diagram, in fishbone shape, showing factors of Equipment, Process, People, Materials, Environment and Management, all affecting the overall problem. Smaller arrows connect the sub-causes to major causes.

For example, under the heading “Machines,” the idea “materials of construction” shows four kinds of equipment and then several specific machine numbers.

Note that some ideas appear in two different places. “Calibration” shows up under “Methods” as a factor in the analytical procedure, and also under “Measurement” as a cause of lab error. “Iron tools” can be considered a “Methods” problem when taking samples or a “Manpower” problem with maintenance personnel.

House of quality (at least three customer requirements):

Description

House of quality isThe primary tool used in Quality function deployment (QFD). QFD integrates customer requirements (voice of the customer, or VOC) into the design and delivery of a service offering. It helps to facilitate group decision-making.

In service industries, QFD is primarily used to determine the priorities of customer requirements in order to target the focus of service offerings and delivery. Since the scope of QFD is broad, this discussion will focus on explaining the house of quality.

Benefits

· Service offerings are built and prioritized on objective customer needs and requirements

· Increased customer satisfaction and loyalty

· Increased customer utilization, sales, and share of wallet

How to Use

Step 1. Determine customer requirements.

Step 2. Determine the functional or “critical to customer” (CTC) requirements. CTCs must be measurable.

Step 3. Prioritize customer requirements using the following point scale: high/strong (9), medium/moderate (3), and low/weak (1).

Step 4. Complete the correlation matrix (see sample below).

Step 5. Complete the house of quality with the conflicts and synergies matrix.

Relevant Definitions

Voice of the customer (VOC): A method of gathering and incorporating the customer’s expectations, aversions, and preferences related to service delivery.

Critical to customer: The requirements the customer must have for service to meet expectations.

Example

A company is asked to install a new computer server system at a customer’s facilities to better serve growing demands for more information and faster response time. The company appoints a team to ensure the new system includes customer requirements.

After conducting a series of interviews and focus groups with the information technology resources from a carefully chosen sample size, the team captures the VOC and enters the data into the customer needs section of the house of quality. The team also determines the relative importance of these needs to customers.

The engineering group develops the functional requirements and evaluates their values, as shown in the correlation matrix below.

3.Needs analysis (at least four needs):

A Training Needs Analysis is a structured process for identifying gaps in employee training and related training needs, usually performed by experienced learning and development consultants.

Training Needs Analysis: The Essential Process for Effective, Targeted Training

The result of a Training Needs Analysis is a plan to ensure your training becomes a targeted, effective activity. You will find out exactly what your employees need to know to achieve your organizational goals, where your current content is missing the mark, and how you can deliver consistent training to keep the skill base of your employees afloat.

Here are 4 key steps in the TNA methodology uses to help organizations develop watertight training systems.

1. Develop a workforce profile.
   The initial step involves developing an accurate workforce profile to determine the skills and knowledge required for specific roles and responsibilities. Vital information to capture includes the demographics of your audience, such as education, experience, and literacy level. This information can be collated in a database or spreadsheet that allows filtering to extract meaningful statistics, for example, viewing the number of people in a certain role across all business units.
2. Verify compliance requirements.
   To conduct business safely and ethically, most organizations have compliancemregulations they must meet, such as legislative requirements, licenses, and codes of conduct. At this stage, your matrix of organizational compliance requirements can be mapped to your workforce profiles to determine the training that needs to be conducted to ensure your employees and business is covered.
3. Source, analyze, and map existing training materials.
   Now that the educational needs of your employees have been identified, it’s time to look at the state of your current training. This is often where most of the time is spent during a Training Needs Analysis. Your current training will be sourced, analyzed, and mapped against your compliance matrix and workforce profile to determine where the gaps lie and any associated impacts. This review is conducted with the question, “What works and what doesn’t?” in mind in terms of educationally sound, engaging, and consistent content. During this step, a close review of courses is undertaken so a summary of materials can be produced that includes content overview, learning outcomes, and usage statistics. If required, your training can also be mapped to national competencies or qualifications so your employees can receive accreditation on completion. Learning Management System data can be a useful resource throughout this step.
4. Make recommendations.
   Generally, the key deliverable of a Training Needs Analysis is a detailed report providing recommendations and advice for developing the most effective training products to meet your needs. This could include purchasing suitable off-the-shelf products, giving your current training a makeover or investing in custom course design. Redundant courses can be removed, content updated or added to “almost there” courses, and content condensed or consolidated to produce a streamlined training experience.

The report should include suggestions for developing best-practice training solutions, a review of what’s happening nationally, or even globally, to train workforces in your industry and advice for building a cohesive, functional training catalog.

Failure Mode Effects Analysis (FMEA)

Also called: potential failure modes and effects analysis; failure modes, effects and criticality analysis (FMECA).

Failure modes and effects analysis (FMEA) is a step-by-step approach for identifying all possible failures in a design, a manufacturing or assembly process, or a product or service.

“Failure modes” means the ways, or modes, in which something might fail. Failures are any errors or defects, especially ones that affect the customer, and can be potential or actual.

“Effects analysis” refers to studying the consequences of those failures.

Failures are prioritized according to how serious their consequences are, how frequently they occur and how easily they can be detected. The purpose of the FMEA is to take actions to eliminate or reduce failures, starting with the highest-priority ones.

Failure modes and effects analysis also documents current knowledge and actions about the risks of failures, for use in continuous improvement. FMEA is used during design to prevent failures. Later it’s used for control, before and during ongoing operation of the process. Ideally, FMEA begins during the earliest conceptual stages of design and continues throughout the life of the product or service.

Begun in the 1940s by the U.S. military, FMEA was further developed by the aerospace and automotive industries. Several industries maintain formal FMEA standards.

What follows is an overview and reference. Before undertaking an FMEA process, learn more about standards and specific methods in your organization and industry through other references and training.

When to Use FMEA

• When a process, product or service is being designed or redesigned, after quality function deployment.
• When an existing process, product or service is being applied in a new way.
• Before developing control plans for a new or modified process.
• When improvement goals are planned for an existing process, product or service.
• When analyzing failures of an existing process, product or service.
• Periodically throughout the life of the process, product or service

FMEA Procedure

(Again, this is a general procedure. Specific details may vary with standards of your organization or industry.)

1. Assemble a cross-functional team of people with diverse knowledge about the process, product or service and customer needs. Functions often included are: design, manufacturing, quality, testing, reliability, maintenance, purchasing (and suppliers), sales, marketing (and customers) and customer service.
2. Identify the scope of the FMEA. Is it for concept, system, design, process or service? What are the boundaries? How detailed should we be? Use flowcharts to identify the scope and to make sure every team member understands it in detail. (From here on, we’ll use the word “scope” to mean the system, design, process or service that is the subject of your FMEA.)
3. Fill in the identifying information at the top of your FMEA form. Figure 1 shows a typical format. The remaining steps ask for information that will go into the columns of the form.

Figure 1 FMEA Example (click image to enlarge)

1. Identify the functions of your scope. Ask, “What is the purpose of this system, design, process or service? What do our customers expect it to do?” Name it with a verb followed by a noun. Usually you will break the scope into separate subsystems, items, parts, assemblies or process steps and identify the function of each.
2. For each function, identify all the ways failure could happen. These are potential failure modes. If necessary, go back and rewrite the function with more detail to be sure the failure modes show a loss of that function.
3. For each failure mode, identify all the consequences on the system, related systems, process, related processes, product, service, customer or regulations. These are potential effects of failure. Ask, “What does the customer experience because of this failure? What happens when this failure occurs?”
4. Determine how serious each effect is. This is the severity rating, or S. Severity is usually rated on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is insignificant and 10 is catastrophic. If a failure mode has more than one effect, write on the FMEA table only the highest severity rating for that failure mode.
5. For each failure mode, determine all the potential root causes. Use tools classified as cause analysis tool, as well as the best knowledge and experience of the team. List all possible causes for each failure mode on the FMEA form.
6. For each cause, determine the occurrence rating, or O. This rating estimates the probability of failure occurring for that reason during the lifetime of your scope. Occurrence is usually rated on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 is extremely unlikely and 10 is inevitable. On the FMEA table, list the occurrence rating for each cause.
7. For each cause, identify current process controls. These are tests, procedures or mechanisms that you now have in place to keep failures from reaching the customer. These controls might prevent the cause from happening, reduce the likelihood that it will happen or detect failure after the cause has already happened but before the customer is affected.
8. For each control, determine the detection rating, or D. This rating estimates how well the controls can detect either the cause or its failure mode after they have happened but before the customer is affected. Detection is usually rated on a scale from 1 to 10, where 1 means the control is absolutely certain to detect the problem and 10 means the control is certain not to detect the problem (or no control exists). On the FMEA table, list the detection rating for each cause.
9. (Optional for most industries) Is this failure mode associated with a critical characteristic? (Critical characteristics are measurements or indicators that reflect safety or compliance with government regulations and need special controls.) If so, a column labeled “Classification” receives a Y or N to show whether special controls are needed. Usually, critical characteristics have a severity of 9 or 10 and occurrence and detection ratings above 3.
10. Calculate the risk priority number, or RPN, which equals S × O × D. Also calculate Criticality by multiplying severity by occurrence, S × O. These numbers provide guidance for ranking potential failures in the order they should be addressed.
11. Identify recommended actions. These actions may be design or process changes to lower severity or occurrence. They may be additional controls to improve detection. Also note who is responsible for the actions and target completion dates.
12. As actions are completed, note results and the date on the FMEA form. Also, note new S, O or D ratings and new RPNs.

FMEA Example

A bank performed a process FMEA on their ATM system. Figure 1 shows part of it—the function “dispense cash” and a few of the failure modes for that function. The optional “Classification” column was not used. Only the headings are shown for the rightmost (action) columns.

Notice that RPN and criticality prioritize causes differently. According to the RPN, “machine jams” and “heavy computer network traffic” are the first and second highest risks.

One high value for severity or occurrence times a detection rating of 10 generates a high RPN. Criticality does not include the detection rating, so it rates highest the only cause with medium to high values for both severity and occurrence: “out of cash.” The team should use their experience and judgment to determine appropriate priorities for action.

SERVQUAL (identify at least two items to measure in each dimension):-

The SERVQUAL service quality model was developed by a group of American authors, 'Parasu' Parasuraman, Valarie Zeithaml and Len Berry, in 1988. It highlights the main components of high quality service. The SERVQUAL authors originally identified ten elements of service quality, but in later work, these were collapsed into five factors - reliability, assurance, tangibles, empathy and responsiveness - that create the acronym RATER.

Businesses using SERVQUAL to measure and manage service quality deploy a questionnaire that measures both the customer expectations of service quality in terms of these five dimensions, and their perceptions of the service they receive. When customer expectations are greater than their perceptions of received delivery, service quality is deemed low.

In addition to being a measurement model, SERVQUAL is also a management model. The SERVQUAL authors identified five Gaps that may cause customers to experience poor service quality.

Gap 3: between service quality specification and service delivery

This gap may arise through service personnel being poorly trained, incapable or unwilling to meet the set service standard. The possible major reasons for this gap are:

· Deficiencies in human resource policies such as ineffective recruitment, role ambiguity, role conflict, improper evaluation and compensation system

· Ineffective internal marketing

· Failure to match demand and supply

· Lack of proper customer education and training

Gap 4: between service delivery and external communication

Consumer expectations are highly influenced by statements made by company representatives and advertisements. The gap arises when these assumed expectations are not fulfilled at the time of delivery of the service. For example, the hospital printed on the brochure may have clean and furnished rooms, but in reality it may be poorly maintained, in which case the patients' expectations are not met. The discrepancy between actual service and the promised one may occur due to the following reasons:

· Over-promising in external communication campaign