Describe the difference between a system and a process. Describe the components and how they impact the system as a whole.
A system can be defined as a set of interrelated or interacting processes.
A process is a set of interrelated or interacting activities that transform inputs into outputs.
Define the difference between common and special cause variation.
Common cause variation results from how the process is designed to operate and is a natural part of the process.
Special cause variation results from unexpected or unusual occurrences that are not inherent in the process.
Understand
Describe what standardization is in quality systems.
Standardization of processes, policies, and procedures allows smoother flow of product and services across the whole range of suppliers and processes and finally to customer delivery.
Keeping things consistent
What is incremental improvement?
Kaizen focuses on implementing small, gradual changes over a long time period. A team from the work group involved initiates incremental changes.
Incremental improvement involves small, gradual changes over time such as: updates to software, simplifying SOPs, and reducing materials on shop floor
What are the steps for incremental improvement?
- Select the process to be improved
- Organize a team to improve the process
- Define the current process
- Simplify the process
- Develop a plan for collecting data and then collect baseline data
- Assess whether the process is stable
- Assess whether the process is capable
- Identify the root causes preventing the process from meeting the objective
- Develop a plan for implementing a change
- Modify the data collection plan developed in step 5, if necessary
- Test the changed process and collect data
- Assess whether the changed process is stable
- Assess whether the change improved the process
- Determine whether additional process improvements are feasible.
These are the steps for incremental improvement.
What are the key factors for incremental improvement?
- Employing operating practices that uncover waste and non-value added steps
- Involvement of everyone in the organization
- Training in improvement, concepts, and tools
- Management that views improvement as an integral part of the organizational strategy
What type of situation is incremental improvement suitable for?
Small incremental long-term changes over time
Incremental improvement is suitable for small, gradual changes over a long period.
What is a breakthrough improvement?
Radically changing how something is done and may involve major process improvements in key business areas. These typically yield the highest economic return as much as 50 to 90% improvement and a short to medium timeframe.
:
Reengineering a major process in a company to achieve significant improvements in efficiency and effectiveness.
What are the steps for a breakthrough improvement?
- Ensure that a strong, committed leader is supporting the initiative
- Form a high-level, cross-functional steering committee
- Create a macro-level process map for the entire organization
- Select one of the major processes to be reengineered
- Form a cross-functional reengineering team
- Examine customers’ requirements and wants in detail
- Look at and understand the current process from the customer’s perspective
- Brainstorm ways to respond to customers’ needs-think outside the box
- Create breakthrough process redesign
- Test-drive the new process design with a portion of the business and customers
- Collect feedback from customers, employees, management, and stakeholders
- Modify the process redesign as needed and communicate the changes
- Plan a controlled rollout of the process redesign
- Implement the rollout plan
- Evaluate the effectiveness of the redesigned process continuously
Example: Following these steps to completely revamp a company’s core processes for better outcomes.
What type of situation can be used for a breakthrough improvement?
Start from scratch and ignore current processes, make large changes quickly.
Example: When a company decides to completely overhaul its existing processes and systems without considering the current setup, aiming for rapid and significant improvements.
Define some improvement/opportunity techniques and/ or methodologies.
- Brainstorming
- PDCA
- Affinity Diagram
- Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ)
- Internal Audits
What is Cost of poor quality (COPQ) and how is it used?
This tool can be referred to as either cost of quality-providing a broader view of what helps to prevent or avoid quality problems, what helps to appraise quality levels, and how we identify and prevent external and internal failures or cost of poor quality, which focuses more on the elements that cause poor quality, and the internal and external failures.
What is “Cost of Quality” (COQ)?
Best tool to use when you want to describe the impact of poor quality or service has on your organization.
What are the four types of Cost of Quality (COQ) classifications?
- Prevention Cost: Are incurred to prevent or avoid quality problems and are associated with the design, implementation, and maintenance of a quality management system.
- Appraisal Cost: Come from measuring and monitoring activities related to quality. These costs are associated with supplier and customer evaluation of purchased materials, processes, products, and services to ensure that they conform to specifications.
- Internal Failure Cost: Are incurred to remedy defects discovered before a product or service is delivered to the customer.
- External Failure Cost: Are incurred to remedy defects after the product or service has been received by the customer. They can include the costs of warranty claims, recalls, repairs and servicing, complaints, and returns.
How can Internal audits be used to help a QMS?
An audit of a quality management system is carried out to ensure that actual practices conform to the documented procedures.
What tools can be used for root cause analysis?
5 whys
Fishbone Diagram
These tools can help by determining factors that cause a positive or negative outcome, focusing on a specific issue without resorting to complaints and irrelevant discussion, determining the root causes of a given effect and identifying areas where there is a lack of data.
What is the PDCA cycle and how is the cycle used?
A four step process for quality improvement.
1.) The first step (plan), is to develop a plan to effect improvement.
2.) The second step (do), the plan is carried out, preferably on a small scale.
3.) The third step (check), the effects of the plan are observed.
4.) The last step (act), the results are studied to determine what was learned and what can be predicted.
Example sentence: Implementing the PDCA cycle can help improve our processes.
Define how the “plan” step is utilized in the PDCA model.
Identify an opportunity and develop a plan for process improvement or change this is the longest and most important step in the model.
1.) identify the problem and goals.
a.) create a problem statement.
B.) define scope.
C.) identify resources and select the team.
D.) identify expected outcomes.
2.) identify and study the current state
A.) map the current stage.
B.) identifying information to be collected
C.) identifying information collection method.
D.) collect data.
E.) display and share data with team.
3.) analyze possible causes of problem.
A.) identify invalidate root causes.
B.) examine and prioritize possible solutions.
C.) move unused solutions to parking lot.
D.) create a plan to develop and test solutions to remove root causes.
Define how the “do” step is utilized in the PDCA model.
Carry out what is detailed in the plan and test the process improvements or change generally on a small scale.
1.) Create a potential solution plan or improvement
2.) Establish improvement measures
3.) Implement the potential solutions on a small scale
4.) Collect data and track measures to determine improvement
Define how the “check” step is utilized in the PDCA model.
Observe an analyze the effects of what was done in the duet step.
1.) analyze data and compare to predicted results.
2.) summarize and share data with other stakeholders.
3.) finalize recommended solutions, including justifications.
Define how the “act” step is utilized in the PDCA model.
Take action based on what you learned in the check step; adopt, adapt, or abandon
A.) If the process improvement worked adopt it on a wider scale.
B.) If the process improvement did not work, adapt and repeat the PDCA model again with changes.
C.) Abandon the improvement and start fresh.
Which improvement tool is considered one of the most important and why?
Internal and external audits are considered one of the most important process improvement tools available to an organization.
o How well is the organization following its own procedures?
o Where are the “disconnects?”
o Why are they happening?
What is Root Cause Analysis and how is it used?
Root cause analysis is a problem-solving approach aimed at identifying, analyzing, and resolving the underlying, core issue (or root cause) of a problem. RCA helps a project team identify why and how a problem occurred.
Perform root cause analysis on a process when:
* Significant or consequential events occur
* Repetitive human errors or equipment failures occur
* Performance is below documented standards
What are some key considerations to be aware of when performing root cause analysis?
- Must be performed systematically and logically
- Any recommended solutions must be backed up by root cause data and documentation
- Analysis must establish strong relationships between the root cause(s) and the defined problem
- There are typically multiple root causes for any given problem.
- Interactions between potential root causes must be fully understood and analyzed to determine how they affect each other and the given problem.
*Any recommended solutions must be analyzed to determine the extent to which they will permanently address the problem and economically impact the organization.
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Team Types9
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Team Role Responsibilities10
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Team Perils/Pitfalls10
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The Six “R’s”6
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Team Evolution8
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Team Organization5
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Components Of A Project Charter9
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Diagrams55
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Quality Plan13
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Quality Definitions9
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Quality Culture8
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Quality Gurus21
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Quality Function Deployment (QFD)9
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Benefits of Quality8
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Complaints Management System8
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Voice Of The Customer (VOC)29
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Customer Identification13
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Systems, Processes, Improvement29
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Supplier Relationship8
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Supplier Performance30
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Supplier Audit9
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Supplier Selection10
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Six Sigma19
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Types of Waste/Downtime12
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Types of Improvement15
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ASQ Quiz Questions32
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Post-Test Questions75
