Research

revision 6; 7/30/2002

Quality Process Improvement Tools and Techniques

By Shoji Shiba and David Walden

Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Center for Quality of Management

1.

Improvement as a problem-solving process

We see process improvement fundamentally as a way of solving problems. If there is not

an apparent or latent problem, process improvement is not needed. If there is a problem,

however intangible, one or more processes needs to be improved to deal with the

problem.

Iterating between thought and practice.

Once you sense a problem, good problem solving technique involves alternating between

the levels of thought and experience,1 as shown in Figure 1. For instance, after you sense

a problem, you should collect some data to get insight regarding the area of the problem,

choose the specific relevant improvement activity you will undertake, collect some more

data, analyze the data to find the causes of the problem, plan a solution and try it, collect

some more data to evaluate the effects of the new solution, standardize on the solution if

it works, and conclude by reflecting on what you did.

Unfortunately, people all too often use poor problem-solving practices, as shown in

Figure 2. One poor approach that we are all familiar with is to stay only at the level of

thought, as shown in row A of Figure 2:

a. sense a problem

b. dither — waste time on intermural squabbling

c. declare a solution — usually by someone in a position of authority

d. forget about it — nothing changes

In the approach of row A, no data is ever collected. No hypotheses are ever tested. A

conclusion about the solution is jumped to without confirming what the problem and its

root cause are. Naturally, the declared solution seldom works.

Another poor approach we are all familiar with is to stay only at the level of

experience, as shown in row B of Figure 2:

a. people are working hard, typically fighting fires

b. some sort of new emergency arises,...