KC 4.2 - Quality tools

Various Quality tools available are:

• Affinity Chart:
Organize facts, opinions, ideas and issues into natural groupings as an aid to diagnosis on a complex problem.
• Brainstorming:
Get ideas from persons who are potential contributors. No criticism or discussion of ideas is allowed until all the ideas are recorded. The ideas are critically reviewed after the brainstorming session.
• Check sheet:
A simple data recording device - this helps delineate important items and characteristics to direct attention to them and verify they are evaluated.
• Control charts:
Based on the statistical variation of any process - control charts help focus on stability of a process.
• Flow chart:
Organize information about a process in a graphical manner thus making it clear who is impacted.
• Focus Group Survey:
Help better understand customer perceptions of a company's products/services. Focus groups consist of 8-10 current or potential customers who meet for a few hours to discuss a product and is usually moderated.

Following are the different tools & methods available for problem characteristic analysis. Note that the links are provided to the respective tools so that you can dig deeper into each one. I am not giving extra notes here.

Pie Charts
Bar Charts
Run Charts
Radar Charts
Scatter Plots
Histograms
Pareto Charts
Normal Test Plots
Control Charts
Relations Diagram
Pathway
Affinity Diagrams
Brainstorms
Cause and Effect Diagrams
Flowcharts
Force Field Diagrams
Tree Diagrams