Chapter 8: Diagramming to Identify Possible Factors

Cause-and-effect (fishbone or Ishikawa) Diagrams

Method, man, material, measurement, mother nature, machine

Cross-Funcational Teams

help to avoid sub-optimization, understand other parts, broader solutions, subject matter expertise

Failure Modes Effect Analysis (FMEA)

identifies the ways in which a product, service, or process can fail (fail modes); estimates the risk associated with specific failure causes (effect analysis); prioritizes the actions to reduce risk of failure (effect analysis); severity*Occurence*detection=RPN (risk priority number)

Incoming arrows

a high number indicates a kay outcome; can become focal point either as a measure of overall success, or a redefinition of the original issue under consideration

Outgoing arrows

a high number indicates an item that is a root cause or driver; generally where process improvement should begin

Silo Effect

focus on own goals vs goal of the business

What does interrelationship diagrams do?

encourages team to think in multiple directions explores cause-and-effect relationships among all issues including controversial Allows the key issues to emerge naturally rather than allowing the issues to be forced by a dominant or powerful team member Systematically surfaces the basic assumption and reasons for disagreements among team members Allows a team to identify root causes even when credible data does not exist

Interrelationship Diagram

to allow a team to identify, analyze and classify the cause-and-effect relationships that exist among all critical issues so that key drivers and outcomes can become the heart of an effective solution