This TQM article is a continuation of the article titled: TQM Implementation Project published on 13-May-2006. This issue is part 2b of the article. It will deal with the "How To" part of the ANALYZE phase of the D.A.I.C. methodology described in the article. More detail sequential steps will be explained as well as the use of the appropriate tools in this ANALYZE Phase. The scope of this article will limit to Root-Cause Analysis using popular 7 QC tools such as Fish-Bone Diagram and Why- Why Analysis.

In my last article, I have shared the Pareto Analysis. Use material loss as case study. From this analysis, team member has identified from their production report a list of material with quantity lost over the last 12 months. Using Pareto Analysis, the team has stratified the list of material lost in a descending order. Based on the 80/20 rules, team is supposed to pick the top 20 percent of the item for improvement. However, the team may faced with resource problem where there is not enough members to take up all the 20 percent of the items. If this arises, the team may choose to start to work on the highest material lost first.

For illustration purpose, lets take the highest contributor to the material loss of a ceramic floor as fired rejects. Using the Fish-Bone Diagram, the team brainstorming all possible causes to the high material loss due to fire rejects. Use the 4-M method as a guide i.e. Man-Machine, Material and Method, the team has brainstormed several possible causes according to the 4-M factors.

As the way to do the Fish-Bone diagram is by brainstorming. The possible causes raised may not be true. As such, the next after Fish-Bone Diagram is to verify all the possible cause are true. There are several options to verify the possible cause. Some of them are observation, check records, interview, process study etc. A table is designed to capture the verification method, person to do the verification, due date to complete the task and findings. Depending on the findings, a remark column is identified to mark a true or false for each possible cause. It may end up a few true possible causes only.

The ANALYZE Phase
Once the Fish-Bone Diagram is completed, team would have a list of “true” possible causes. Why-Why Analysis is performed for those verified possible causes to establish the root causes. There are different schools of thoughts in using the Why-Why Analysis. One of it is to ask the question why until an obvious solution can be established. Another school of thought is to ask the question why until a human factor is surfaced. This is a typical Total Productive Maintenance (TPM) concept.

Let me give this illustration: A staff come to office late

Why was the employee late to office?

Answer: He was late because it there was a traffic jam

Why is the staff caught in the traffic jam

Answer: He left his home late;

Then the solution is for the staff to leave his home earlier.

In summary, this article briefly explain how Fish-bone and Why-Why Analysis is used in the ANALYZE PHASE of the D.A.I.C. improvement methodology. To continue the process of improvement, after this phase, the team would look into the IMPROVE Phase which will be written in the next TQM article.

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Resource Box: About the Author, LM Foong

The author holds a MBA major in TQM. He is an expert in Malcolm Baldrige Business Framework and Baldrige Assessment and TQM Implementations in manufacturing and service sector. He facilitates workshops and Cost Reduction and Productivity Improvement projects. He publishes TQM articles, ebooks, case studies, trainer manual and presentation slides available at More TQM articles or Please Visit my Web Site.

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