The 7 Quality Tools: Do You Know What They Are?

We all know that without quality there is no way to compete in the market today, right?

It is one of the key critical factors when it comes to customer satisfaction. Increasingly, companies are looking for total quality to ensure your product and / or service is at the top.

But how to ensure quality? This is an extremely important question for all types of business, from a multinational to a small one.

And the answer is not so complicated! There are 7 quality tools that can help make your business better by establishing continuous improvement, leveraging the results and reducing waste that may be occurring in their processes.

Customers are becoming more demanding, the market is at an ever-increasing level, and to not be left behind, I will show you in this article all about those tools that have transformed the lives of countless companies. Let&rsquos go?

What is quality?

We can not talk about quality tools without first defining this concept. And to make it easier, let's see the following image:

Which car has the best quality? The right answer is up to you! Why so? Surely you must think I'm crazy, after all, it's a Ferrari against a Beetle.

However, that's exactly where a crucial point comes in: quality depends on the purpose, i.e. if you want a vehicle to use off road, certainly the quality of the Beetle will be better for you. On the other hand, if you want a vehicle to use in the city, Ferrari is sure to be your choice!

That is, quality is the degree to which the specific product conforms to the design or specification. This is the definition of Gilmore, one of the quality gurus, which for us is certainly one of the best.

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What are the quality tools?

If I were to list all of them in this article, you would surely be tired and not finish reading. There are numerous quality tools that can be applied to improve processes and services in order to make a good quality management .

However, over the years, some of them stood out for their high efficiency and results, and they are:

• Flowchart
• Control letters
• Ishikawa diagram
• Check sheet
• Histogram
• Scatter diagram
• Pareto diagram

So the time has come to talk more about each one individually ...

The 7 quality tools

1 - Flowchart

The flowchart is a diagram that expresses a particular process, or workflow, sequentially, graphically, simply, objectively and directly .

This representation is made from geometric figures that symbolize stages of the given process and are connected by arrows that indicate the direction and the sequence to be followed.

The objective is to establish a management in sight, in order to facilitate the understanding of the steps that make up a process.

This is a traditional example of a block flowchart, one of the simplest and most used to represent simple processes.

If you want to learn how to make a flowchart, just click the link to access the complete article about this quality tool.

2 - Control charts

A control chart is a set of time-ordered points (samples) that are interpreted as horizontal lines, called LSCs and LICs.

The use of the Control Letter is very important for the management process, allowing the company to monitor and control its processes.

From this verification, one can act to correct any problems in the process, generating greater productivity and efficiency.

To make it easier, you can use excel to make your control chart, allowing you to update the data as your process continues to improve, so you do not have to recalculate every improvement you've made.

3 - Ishikawa Diagram

Ishikawa Diagram, also known as Cause and Effect Diagram or Fishbone, allows to hierarchically structure the causes of a problem or opportunity for improvement.

Created by Kaoru Ishikawa, the fishbone diagram is extremely useful as it helps you explore all the potential or actual causes that result in a single defect or failure.

Given this, we can propose the best actions to solve a problem within our company.

4 - Check Sheet

A Check Sheet is the simplest quality tools tool. But, although simple, the use of the check sheet saves time, eliminating the work of drawing figures or writing repetitive numbers, without compromising the analysis of the data.

These are tables, sheets or structured tables used to facilitate the collection and analysis of data. Check sheets are forms in which the collected data is filled in quickly, easily and concisely. They record data and items to be checked momentarily and also serve to identify nonconformities in the process.

5 - Histogram

The Histogram, also known as Frequency Distribution Diagram, is the graphical representation, in columns (rectangles), of a data set previously tabulated and divided into uniform classes.

• The base of each rectangle represents a class
• The height of each rectangle represents the amount or frequency with which the value of that class occurred in the data set.

By providing the information graphically, the Histogram allows the visualization of the central values, the dispersion around the central values and the form of the distribution.

This is one of the more traditional types of histograms, called the symmetric histogram. However, anyone who thinks there is only such a histogram is wrong! As I said, there are 6 types of histograms that can be used depending on the data that needs to be represented.

6 - Dispersion Diagram

The Scatterplots, or Scatterplots, are representations of two or more variables that are organized in a graph, one in function of the other.

The diagram shows whether or not there is a correlation between two studied variables, and if there is correlation, it can be positive or negative.

By understanding the correlation between two variables and how one can influence the other, we can determine the best use of them to improve the quality and productivity of our company.

In addition, there is the possibility of inferring a causal relationship between variables, helping to determine the root cause of problems.

Through this diagram it is possible to study 5 types of correlations between variables, which is extremely useful when determining how a metric influences another during the execution of a process.

7 - Pareto diagram

The Pareto chart is a statistical tool that assists in decision making, allowing a company to prioritize problems when they present themselves in large numbers.

The Pareto principle classifies quality-related problems into two categories:

• Few vital
• Too trivial.
  

This principle, better known as rule 20-80, tells us that 20% of the root causes account for 80% of the problems in an organization. In other words, if we solve these 20%, we end up with a lot of the problems.

Once again we can use Excel in our favor! It is possible to do a complete Pareto diagram in Excel, and to learn how, just click on the link to access our article that explains the step by step in detail.

Did you understand the seven quality tools?

As you have seen, each tool has a purpose. The ideal is to use the one that best fits your need, because in this way the results will be the best possible.

Just as the 7 quality tools search for continuous improvement, you need to be always studying to learn more and more about them.

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