The Seven New QC Tools (Tokyo, Japan, 3A Corporation, 1984) The N7 are techniques for untangling the intricate relationships among the different variables of a problem. The 7 QC Tools are simple statistical tools used for problem solving. These tools were either developed in Japan or introduced to Japan by the Quality Gurus such as Deming and Juran. When solving a problem using the The N7 Tools it is essential to know which stage of the problem-solving process that you have reached. As much as 95% of quality related problems in the factory can be solved with seven fundamental quantitative tools." - Kaoru Ishikawa . What are the Basic Seven Tools of Quality?

1. PowerPoint presentation to accompany
Besterfield
Quality Control, 8e
Chapter 12- Management
and Planning Tools
Quality Control

2. Some Problems (Challenges) !
 Undergraduate Unemployment
 Improve customer experience in a restaurant
 topics for research/project
 expending/relocation business entity
 improve customer experience driving a car
 improving health care system
 What are the consequences of children watching
violent television shows and playing violent video
games?
 ISO Implementation in an organzation

3. The Basic Seven Q.C. Tools?
 Flow Charts
 Run Charts
 Histograms
 Pareto Diagrams
 Cause and Effect Diagrams
 Scatter Diagrams
 Control Charts

4. Relation Between New Q.C. Tools and Basic
Seven Tools
FACTS
Data
Numerical Data Verbal Data
Organize
The New Tools
Information
The Basic Tools
•Generate Ideas
•Formulate plans
•Analytical approach
Define problem after
collecting numerical data
Define problem before
collecting numerical data

5. Benefits of Incorporating Q.C. Tools
Enhanced Capabilities
 Generate ideas
 Improve planning
 Eliminate errors and omissions
 Explain problems intelligibly
 Secure full cooperation
 Persuade powerfully
 Organize verbal data

6. Benefits of Incorporating Q.C. Tools
 Clarify the desired situation
 Prioritize tasks effectively
 Proceed systematically
 Anticipate future events
 Change proactively
 Get things right the first time
 Assess situations from various angles

7. Benefits of Incorporating Q.C. Tools
Five Objectives of Organizational Reform
which will establish a Culture that:
 Gives importance to planning
 Stresses the importance of the process
 Prioritizes tasks
 Encourages everyone to think
systematically
 Identifies problems

8. Benefits of Incorporating Q.C. Tools
Unstructured Problem [must be put into solvable form]
Problem is mapped
Problem becomes
obvious to all
Problem is in solvable form
The Seven New Tools
Thoughts are
easily organized
Things go well
People understand
problem
Cooperation is
obtained
Countermeasures
are on target
Problem becomes
obvious to all
Nub of problem
is identified
Problem can be
clearly articulated
Plans are
easily laid
Nothing is
omitted
Source: Nayatani, Y., The Seven New QC Tools (Tokyo, Japan, 3A Corporation, 1984)

9. Why, Why
Key to finding the root cause of a problem by
focusing on the process rather than on people.
Describes the problem in specific terms and then
ask “why”.
This tool is very beneficial in developing critical
thinking.
It is frequently a quick method of solving
problems.

10. Management and Planning Tools
These tools are particularly useful in
structuring unstructured ideas, making
strategic plans, organizing and controlling
large and complex projects.
These tools are very effective for teams and,
in some cases, for individuals.

11. Management and Planning Tools
Subjective information.
Applications of these tools has been proven
useful in process improvement, cost reduction,
policy deployment, and new-product
development.

12. 85% of poor quality is a result of
poor work processes, not of staff
doing a bad job
Processes often “go wrong” at the
point of the “handoff”
Attend to improving the overall
process, not just one part—some of
the most complex processes are
the result of creating a “work
around”

13. Outline
1.Force Field Analysis
2.Nominal Group Technique
3.Affinity Diagram
4.Interrelationship Diagram

14. Outline
6. Tree Diagram
7. Matrix Diagram
8. Prioritization Matrices
9. Process Decision Program Chart
10.Activity Network Diagram

15. Learning Objectives
When you complete this chapter, you should:
 Be able to describe the why, why, forced field, and nominal group techniques.
 Know how to develop and utilize the following tools:
Affinity Diagram
Interrelationship Diagram
Tree Diagram
Matrix Diagram

16. Learning Objectives-cont’d.
When you complete this chapter, you should:
Know how to develop and utilize the
following tools cont’d.:
Process Decision Program Chart
Activity Network Diagram
Prioritization Matrices

17. Forced Field Analysis
Identifies the forces and factors that may
influence the problem or goal.
Helps an organization to better understand
promoting or driving and restraining or inhibiting
forces so that the positives can be reinforced and
the negatives reduced or eliminated.

18. Forced Field Analysis
Steps:
1. Define the objective.
2. Determine criteria for evaluating the
effectiveness of the improvement action.
3. Brainstorm the forces that promote and inhibit
achieving the goal.

19. Forced Field Analysis
Steps cont’d.:
4.Prioritize the forces from greatest to
least.
5.Take action to strengthen the promoting
forces and weaken the inhibiting forces.

20. Forced Field Analysis
Benefits:
Determine the positives and negatives of
a situation.
Encourage people to agree and prioritize
the competing forces.
Identify the root causes.

21. Forced Field Analysis
Objective: Stop Smoking
Promoting Forces Inhibiting Forces
Poor Health Habit
Smelly Clothing Addiction
Poor Example Taste
Cost Stress
Impact on Others Advertisement

22. What is a force-field analysis?
Force-field analysis is a problem-solving tool that is used to identify the reasons (“forces”) that
support two positions to a question and the strength of each force. For example, force-field
analysis could be sued by a team to answer the question, “Should ABC Inc. establish an office in
Singapore?”
3. Following the rules of brainstorming, have the team provide as many reasons as possible for each of the
responses. As with any brainstorming session, no answer should be ignored and no critique is permitted
during the brainstorming session. After this session, the team’s force field might look like the following
chart:
Yes No
Adapted from Practicing Organization Development

23. Should ABC establish an office in Singapore?
Yes No
High demand
Too far from Japan
Stable economy
Lack of competition
College graduates available to work for
ABC
Business plan shows high potential profit
No existing customers
Travel costs too great
Too much investment
No employees are culturally aware
Japan can cover
Dictatorship
The facilitator will then do a quick scan of the group and count the participants’ responses. This number is
then written on the chart. See sample chart on the following page.

24. 4. Once the team can provide no new information to the brainstorming
session, the items provided should be reviewed for clarification,
duplication, and so on. Items should be reworded, if necessary, for
clarification.
5. The next step is to identify how strong a force each item is. There are
many ways to do this. One simple way is to treat each item with a
five-point Likert scale. The facilitator may handle this process in the
following manner:
“if you believe that the statement I read is a very strong
argument for establishing an office in Singapore, hold up five
fingers. If you believe that is a very weak argument for the
position, hold up only one finger. How strong an argument do
you think ‘High demand’ is?”

25. Yes No
5 High demand
3 Too far from Japan
4 Stable economy
2 Lack of competition
2 College graduates available to work for ABC
5 Business plan shows high potential profit
1 No existing customers
2 Travel costs too great
5 Too much investment
2 No employees are culturally aware
5 Japan can cover
3 Dictatorship
6. Items that are perceived to be low in interest should be eliminated from the chart. In the sample chart
above, items with a 1 or 2 would be removed. See sample chart below.
Should ABC establish an office in Singapore?
Yes No
5 High demand
3 Too far from Japan
4 Stable economy
5 Business plan shows high potential profit
5 Too much investment
5 Japan can cover
3 Dictatorship
7. Given the arguments that remain, participants would try to decide the question.
Exhibit 6-5: Conducting a Force-Field Analysis (continued)

26. Nominal Group Technique
Provides the issues/ideas input from
everyone on the team and for effective
decisions.

27. Nominal Group Technique
Steps:
1. Everyone writes on a piece of paper the situation they think
is most important.
2. The papers are collected, and all situations are listed on a flip
chart.
3. Rank the situations (using another paper). Give numerical
values 1…
4. Points for each problem are totaled and the item with the
highest number of points is considered to be the most
important.

28. Stages
Introduction
Idea Sharing
Idea Generation
Discussion Voting/Ranking
Preparation

29. Example of NGT
The faculty at X-University is
concerned that the students are not
getting internships and jobs. A team is
created involving faculty, students, and
recruiters. The goal is to identify the
cause of this problem. After this NGT
process, the faculty will create an action
plan based on the outcome.

30. Example of NGT
Statement of Problem:
Why aren’t students getting
internships and job offers?

31. Individual idea generation:
Not enough recruiters come.
Their resumes are weak.
Students are unwilling to
relocate.
Students are
unprepared.
No internships
prevents them
from getting jobs
later on.
The career fair is not
productive.
Everyone wants to stay
in-state.
The job market is slow.
Poor interview skills.
They’re not
networking.

32. Idea Sharing:

33. Discussion:
What do you
mean by
“poor
interview
skills?”
Does that
include lack
of training?
Is the career
fair not
productive
because
there are too
many people
or too few?
Can we re-
word that to
say, “There
aren’t job
opportunities
through the
career fair?”
Should
we
combine
“unwilling
ness to
relocate”
with
“students
wanting
to stay in-
state?”

34. Voting/ranking:
Idea # Rank
3 7
4 6
7 5
2 4
1 3
5 2
6 1
1. Unwilling to re-
locate
2. Poor interview
skills
3. Weak resumes
4. Career fair
doesn’t offer
very many job
opportunities
5. Students aren’t
networking.
6. Not enough
recruiters.
7. Bad job market
Idea # Rank
1 3+1+1=5
2 4+2+3=9
3 7+6+7=20
4 6+3+6=15
5 2+4+2=8
6 1+5+4=10
7 5+7+5=17
List of ideas
Individual rankings
Combined
points

35. Affinity Diagram
A tool for organizing a large number of
ideas, opinions, and facts relating to a
broad problem or subject area.

36. Affinity Diagram
Procedure:
1. State the issue in a full sentence.
2. Brainstorm using short sentences on
self-adhesive notes.
3. Post them for the team to see.
4. Sort ideas into logical groups.
5. Create concise descriptive headings for each
group.

37. Topic
Affinity Statement
Data Card
Data Card
Data Card
Data Card
Affinity Statement
Data Card
Data Card
Data Card
Data Card
Affinity Statement
Data Card
Data Card
Data Card
Affinity Statement
Data Card
Data Card
Data Card
Data Card
Data Card Data Card

38. Activity
Innovative product features

39. Interrelationship Diagram
Identifies and explores causal relationships
among related concepts or ideas.
It allows the team to classify the cause-and-
effect relationships among all factors so that the
key drivers and outcomes can be used to solve
the problem.

41. Interrelationship Diagram
Steps:
1. The team should agree on the issue or problem
statement.
2. All of the ideas or issues from other techniques or
from brainstorming should be laid out.
3. Start with the first issue.
4. The second iteration is to compare other issues.

42. Interrelationship Diagram
Steps cont’d.:
5. The entire diagram should be reviewed and
revised where necessary.
6. The diagram is completed by tallying the
incoming and outgoing arrows and placing
this information below the box.

43. No cause effect
relationship
A weak cause effect
relationship
A strong cause effect
relationship

45. Interrelationship Diagram
Benefits:
Allows the team to identify root causes from
subjective data.
Systematically explores cause-and-effect
relationships.
Encourages members to think
multidirectionally.
Develops team harmony and effectiveness.

46. Tree Diagram
Maps out the paths and tasks necessary to
complete a specific project or reach a specified
goal.

47. Tree Diagram
Procedure:
1. Choose an action-oriented objective statement from
the interrelationship diagram, affinity diagram,
brainstorming, team mission statement.
2. Using brainstorming, choose the major headings.
3. Generate the next level by analyzing the major
headings. Repeat this question at each level.

48. Tree Diagram
Benefits:
Encourages team members to think
creatively.
Makes large projects manageable.
Generates a problem-solving
atmosphere.

49. Tree Diagram Example Cont.
Key Strategic Factor Goals Strategies

51. Matrix Diagram
 Display relationships between ideas, activities or other
dimensions in such a way as to provide logical
connecting points between each item.
 Data are presented in table form and can be objective or
subjective, which can be given symbols with or without
numerical values.
 Identified in 1988 book, Management for Quality
Improvement by Shigeru Mizuno

52. Matrix Diagram
Procedure:
1. Select the factors affecting a successful
plan.
2. Select the appropriate format (depend on
the number of variables).
3. Determine the relationship symbols.

53. Matrix Diagram
Benefits:
Encourage the team to think in terms
of relationship, their strength, and
any pattern.

54. Matrix Diagram Exercise
A restaurant manager wants to
improve customer’s dining
experience!

55. Matrix Diagram Exercise cont.
How would you fill in the matrix?
FACTORS TOTAL
Food
Staff
Atmosphere
OPTIONS
Improve
Quality
of
Food
Improve
Quality
of
Service
Increase
Budget
for
Decorations
Add
Staff
Decrease
Menu
Prices
Increase
Menu
Choices
+ High (5)
=
- Low (1)
Medium (3)
Improve customer's dining experience

56. FACTORS TOTAL
Food + - - 7
Staff + = 8
Atmosphere - = 4
OPTIONS
Improve
Quality
of
Food
Improve
Quality
of
Service
Increase
Budget
for
Decorations
Add
Staff
Decrease
Menu
Prices
Increase
Menu
Choices
+ High (5)
=
- Low (1)
Medium (3)
Improve customer's dining experience

57. Prioritization Matrices
Prioritizes issues, tasks, characteristics, based on
weighted criteria using a combination of tree and
matrix diagram techniques.
Once prioritized, effective decision can be made.
Prioritization matrices are designed to reduce the
team’s options rationally before implementation
planning occurs.

58. Prioritization Matrices
Steps:
1. Construct an L-Shaped matrix combining the
options, which are the lowest-level of detail of
the tree diagram with the criteria.
2. Determine the implementation criteria using the
nominal group technique (NGT) or any other
technique that will satisfactorily weight the
criteria.

59. Prioritization Matrices
Steps cont’d.:
3. Prioritize the criteria using the NGT. Each team
member weights the criteria so the total weight
equals 1, and the results are totaled for the entire
team.
4. Rank order the options in terms of importance by
each criterion, average the results, and round to
the nearest whole number.

60. Prioritization Matrices
Steps cont’d.:
5. Compute the option importance score under
each criterion by multiplying the rank by the
criteria weight.
-- refer to handout 1

61. Process Decision Program Chart
The PDPC avoids surprises and identifies possible
countermeasures.
PDPC is a method for mapping out every
conceivable event and contingency that can occur
when moving from a problem statement to possible
solutions.

63. Process Decision Program Chart
Steps:
1. The team state the objective.
2. That activity is followed by the first level.
3. In some cases a second level of detailed
activities may be used.
4. The team brainstorms to determine what
could go wrong with the conference, and
these are shown as the “what-if” level.

64. Process Decision Program Chart
Steps cont’d.:
5. The countermeasures are brainstormed and
placed in a balloon in the last level.
6. The last step is to evaluate the countermeasures
and select the optimal ones by placing an O
underneath. Place an X under those that are
rejected.

66. Activity Network Diagram
Program evaluation and review technique
(PERT).
Critical path method (CPM).
Arrow diagram.
Activity on node (AON).
The diagram shows completion times,
simultaneous tasks, and critical activity path.

68. Activity Network Diagram
Steps:
1. The team brainstorms or documents all the task
to complete a project.
2. The first task is located and placed on the
extreme left of a large view work surface.
3. Any tasks that can be done simultaneously are
placed below.

69. Activity Network Diagram
Steps cont’d.:
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 until all tasks are
placed in their correct sequence.
5. Number each task and draw connecting
arrows.
6. Determine the critical path by completing
the four remaining boxes in each task.

70. Activity Network Diagram for Green
Productivity Project

72. Computer Training
Center

73. Activity On Arrow for Computer Institute

74. Recommendations to Use Q.C. Tools
Mental Attitudes
- Keen awareness to the actual problem
- Eagerness to solve problem
- Be highly motivated for the challenge
Four Specific Keys
 Understand the problem
 Select the right tool for the job
 Obtain appropriate verbal data
 Interpret analytical results

75.  Understand the problem
Stage 1 - problem is unclear and not obvious
what exact issue should be addressed
Stage 2 - problem is obvious, but causes unknown
explore causes and single out valid ones
Stage 3 - problem and causes are known
required action is unknown
strategies and plan must be developed
Recommendations to Use Q.C. Tools

76.  Selecting Right tool for the Job
Stage 1 - Collect verbal information on events
(Affinity Diagram)
Stage 2 - Choose tool to identify causes
(Relations Diagram / Matrix
Diagram)
Stage 3 - List strategies and activities
(Tree Diagram / Relations Diagram)
Plan actual activities
(Arrow Diagram / PDPC Chart)
Recommendations to Use Q.C. Tools

77.  Obtaining appropriate verbal data
Three types of verbal data:
- Facts; factual observations expressed in words
- Opinions; factual information colored by opinion
- Ideas; New concepts created by analyzing facts
.Group Discussions:
- Ensures common understanding
- All data should be without bias or
distortion
- Data should fit objective of the analysis
Recommendations to Use Q.C. Tools

78.  Interpreting Analytical Results
Information must be obtained for
accomplishing
objectives from:
- Completed diagrams; or
- Process of completing diagrams
Analyze actual information obtained:
- Prepare summarized report with findings,
conclusions, and processes used
- Check if necessary data has been
obtained, if not
- Discover the cause and take appropriate
action
Recommendations to Use Q.C. Tools

79. Exercises
 The roles of
 Suppliers
 Customers
 Efficiency
 Effectiveness
 Service Industry Innovativeness
 Value-added services and its benefits to the customers
 Management tools to manufacture a product
 Small group (< 5)
 Big group