Introduction:
‘Quality story’ has become a standardized quality improvement process in which Japanese quality circles are trained to follow. ‘The seven tools of quality control’ is a phrase which originated from Japan and is inseparable from quality circles.
Quality circle:
A quality circle is:
• A small group
• Voluntarily carrying out quality control activities
• Within its own work area.
This small group, where each member participates, carries out:
• Continuously
• As part of the company’s total quality control activities
• Quality and improvement
• Within its own work area
• using quality control techniques.
One of the reasons for the success of the so-called quality circles in Japan is that in the ‘Deming cycle’ a substantial part of the activities—‘check’, ‘action’ and ‘planning’— have been transferred to the ‘process level’ (operator level).
How important the different quality control techniques are depends on the nature of the problem.
Transfer of PDCA activities to the ‘do’ level
The most important quality technique in Japan is the cause-and-effect diagram and as the Pareto diagram is often used in connection with the cause-and-effect diagram, it is not surprising that this quality technique in Japan is ranked as number 2.