Throughout his life, Deming could not emphasize enough the importance of understanding variation. In fact, Variation is one of the four pillars of his System of Profound Knowledge. The other three are Appreciation for a System, Theory of Knowledge, and Psychology. Lloyd S. Nelson was quoted saying that the central problem in management and in leadership is failure to understand information in variation.
This paper examines the effects of process tampering on variation when the process is stable or in control. It will show that reacting to common causes of variation as if they are special causes will only lead to increase in variation and the likelihood of producing unacceptable output. To do so, the experiment was conducted by students in three stages. The first stage is the “control” stage where no action was taken and the process operated as is. In the second stage, the students were asked to make adjustments and hit the target region. The third stage represented taking the proper – long term – action. That is, an investment by management to reduce variation and optimize the process. Finally, the three stages are compared next to each other on a statistical process control (SPC) chart.
Dr. Mustafa Shraim is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering Technology & Management at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. He received both of his B.S. and M.S. degrees from Ohio University in 1986 and 1989, respectively. He received his Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from West Virginia University in 1996.
He has over 20 years of experience in the quality management field as a quality engineer, corporate quality manager, consultant and trainer. His experience is extensive in quality management systems as wells as Lean and Six Sigma methods. In addition, he coached and mentored Green & Black Belts on process improvement projects in the manufacturing and service industries.
Dr. Shraim is a Certified Quality Engineer (CQE) & a Certified Six Sigma Black Belt (CSSBB) by The American Society for Quality (ASQ). He is also a certified Quality Management Systems (QMS) Principal Auditor by the International Register of Certificated Auditors (IRCA) in London. He was elected a Fellow by ASQ in 2007.
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