The Magnificent seven

Amaka didn’t want to disappoint, so she invited Titus-her Love to the house to show her mum who she is dating. She was to make him a meal, he prefers white soup and pounded yam. So she carefully selected her recipe and ensured she was very watchful with time; she did all she knows to do to make a good soup but she added a little more salt. Mummy Amaka beckoned, but Amaka would not leave the kitchen. So she went to see what was wrong. With Titus waiting patiently for his meal from his beloved. Amaka was confused, what impression would she give Titus she thought. Mummy Amaka tasted the soup, looked at her daughter and knew what to do. Mummy Amaka often left pieces of potatoes in the kitchen at all times, today Amaka was going to learn what the purpose was. She sliced a few and added to the soup. The excess salt was absorbed and the food was tasteful. You needed to see how happy Amaka was, especially because of the look of satisfaction she saw in her beloved eyes.

No one can deny the importance of quality in modern world competitive market where only those who survive, are those who can provide better quality products. Here we are going to highlight the ‘SEVEN MAGNIFICENT TOOLS OF QUALITY’ as well as the basic implementation tool.

Edward Deming explains “The Deming Chain Reaction” in his book “out of the crisis” in 1986. According to him “when the quality is improved, the cost decrease (because of less) rework, fewer mistakes, fewer delays and better use of machine, time and material, when cost decrease productivity improves, when productivity improves they capture the market with better quality & low  price and in this way they stay in the business, enhance their business and provide more jobs”.

The seven quality tools were developed independently of each other’s however it was first popularized by Dr Kaoru Ishikawa of Tokyo University during the Quality revolution in Japan. Dr Kaoru Ishikawa did not invent all of these tools, some of these were already in use since the 1900s, but he took all these seven tools and made a set of these seven tools and named it “the basic seven tools of quality” .That’s why these tools are also called Ishikawa tools of quality.  These tools are also known as basic quality tools because these tools are suitable for people and required less formal training in statistics and because they can be used to solve the vast majority of quality-related issues

Tools of quality can be implemented through many ways in the process industry but PDCA cycle and DMAIC methodology are the most famous and widely used technique through which quality tools can be implemented in the industrial process.

PDCA is a continual improvement in Deming’s cycle. PDCA is an abbreviation of a plan, do, check (study), act, this is a four-step iterative cycle used for process improvement. The planning step is about establishing quality targets and observing the process, in the second step data is collected and the problem is identified, in the third step problem is analyzed and at the end, steps are taken to remove the problems and to achieve quality targets. Notice that this is a collaborative process to find ibid.

DMAIC methodology is also same as PDCA cycle but the steps of DMAIC are a bit more explanatory than the PDCA cycle. DMAIC is the abbreviation of Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control. DMAIC methodology is used for process improvement. DMAIC is a systematic way of improving process defining the problem than measuring its impact, examining why the problem is occurring, then improving the process by removing the problem and at the end control the process so that no more problems occur. Notice, this works describes an existing process. For a new process, it becomes DMADV-Define, Measure, Analyze, Design and Verify.