A Best Practice is that practice that has been proven to achieve the best results. It represents creative solutions to common problems and has the potential to be replicated internally and externally. Companies are able to learn from other successful organizations by adopting their best practices without the need to reinvent the wheel. Companies can also develop and share their own best practices and innovative solutions. Read more »»
An audit checklist is a set of questions that must be answered to verify requirements or standards are being met. It compensates for the limitation of human memory and helps the observer to ensure that nothing is missed or left behind. It enables the observer to better address compliance gaps and provides an opportunity for continuous improvement. Common examples of checklists are: to-do lists, preventive maintenance schedules, safety checklists and 5S checklists.
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Standard work means working on standards to produce correct and consistent results. It represents the best sequence and the most efficient methods to perform a process. It is considered a way to achieve the highest possible degree of consistency in any process. The purpose is to ensure that everything is done by everyone in a similar manner and carry out the work that achieves the highest quality, best service and lowest cost possible. Read more »»
After collecting the answered questionnaires from your respondents, you have to analyze the data and report the results. This template is used to analyze the collected qualitative data from a large number of individuals and summarize the results in a report. It consists of two worksheets; one enables you to enter the data of your respondents, and the other is the interpretation of your data in a scorecard format. Further statistical analysis, conclusions and recommendations can be added to the report as needed.
Read more »»The purpose of the Pareto Chart is to address the most important among a set of factors, the highest occurring type of defect, the most frequent reasons for customer complaints, and so on. It combines an ordered bar chart and a line chart. The items on the left side of the chart are called the “vital few” while the rest are considered the “trivial many”.
Read more »»The Cause and Effect Matrix is used to understand the relationship between causes and effects. Whenever an output variable drifts out of specification, that is an effect. When an effect goes out of specification, you need to rank the potential causes in terms of importance, and the causes with the highest overall score should be addressed first in improvement efforts.
Read more »»A Matrix Diagram is a table that allows sets of data to be compared to understand the relationship between them. It displays the existence and strength of the relationship between pairs of items of the data sets. The relationship is indicated by a number or symbol in each cell where each two items intersect in the matrix. Matrix diagrams can be useful in a wide range of applications from matching requirements with specifications to assigning responsibilities based on competencies.
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The Normal Distribution is the commonest and the most useful continuous probability distribution. Many statistical tests require that the distribution is normal or nearly normal. Several tools are available to assess the normality of data including: using a histogram to visually explore the data, producing a normal probability plot, and carrying out an Anderson-Darling normality test. All these tools are easy to use in Minitab statistical software. Read more »»
There are different shapes, models and classifications of probability distributions including the ones discussed in the probability distributions article. It is always a good practice to know the distribution of your data before proceeding with your analysis. Once you find the appropriate model, you can then perform your statistical analysis in the right manner. Minitab can be used to find the appropriate probability distribution of your data. Read more »»
Continuous distributions describe variables that take values from a continuous range and can be measured with any degree of accuracy. The commonest and the most useful continuous distribution is the normal distribution. The Normal Distribution is a symmetrical probability distribution where most results are located in the middle and few are spread on both sides. It has the shape of a bell and can entirely be described by its mean and standard deviation. Read more »»
Most improvement projects and scientific research studies are conducted with sample data rather than with data from an entire population. A Probability Distribution is a way to shape the sample data to make predictions and draw conclusions about an entire population. It refers to the frequency at which some events or experiments occur. It helps finding all the possible values a random variable can take between the minimum and maximum statistically possible values. Read more »»
Minitab is a statistical software that allows you to enter your data to perform a wide range of statistical analyses on that data. It can be used to calculate many types of descriptive statistics including the ones discussed in the Descriptive Statistics article which can tell you a lot about your data in order to make more rational decisions. Descriptive statistics summaries in Minitab can be either quantitative or visual. Read more »»
