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Fish Bone Diagram

Fish Bone diagram is also known as Cause and Effect diagram. Since it is introduced by Professor  Kaoru Ishikawa in 1960s hence it is also known as Ishikawa Diagram. He introduced this tool for the first time when he worked with the Kawasaki shipyards in the quality management process. 

It is used in order to identify the probable causes. The first step for creating a fish Bone diagram is to determine the factors that contribute to variations within a process. Fish Bone Diagram describes those contributing factors as 6 M in the manufacturing industries or any other industries.

Pillar of Fish Bone Diagram : 6M

6 M describes as Man, Machine, Method, Material, Measurement and Mother Nature. These 6 M’s influence variation in all processes and serve as six main “bones” of Fish Bone Diagram.

Man : Any cause that can be attribute to human i.e. improper action, haste recklessness, lack of knowledge. People untrained in 6 Sigma tend to focus on the ‘Man’ portion of the 6Ms when looking at a process.

Machine : All the causes that affect the machine that has been operated comes under sub bone of machine. If the machinery get rusted or any parts damaged or not calibrated this may decrease the productivity. Find out solutions to regularly maintain and repair equipment.

Method : To be more specific, the methodology, methods or techniques will affect the action’s result. Other factors concerned are workflow, choice of technical parameters, technical guidance and execution of workflow.

Materials : All causes relating to material used for work i.e. low quality of raw material, chemical properties of that material comes under material section.

Measurement : When it comes to measurement, the following factors need to be considered for correct results i.e. measurement gauge, measurement method, calibration, measurer’s and readability of the results.

Mother nature : Any cause that affects the environment itself i.e. pollution, heat, dust, humidity, vibration, noise disturbance and the working environment i.e. layout, lack of space, incorrect sizing of equipment, confined space.

Key concept of Fish Bone diagram

• Fish Bone Diagram cannot identify a root cause. It presents graphically the many causes that might contribute to the observed effect.
• Fish Bone Diagram is a visual representation of the factors that might contribute to an observed effect that is being examined.
• The interrelationships among the possible cause factors are clearly shown. One possible cause factor may appear in several places in the diagram.
• The interrelationships are generally qualitative and hypothetical.
• Fish Bone Diagram focuses the attention of all team members on the specific problem at hand in a structured, systematic way.

Advantage and Disadvantage Fish Bone Diagram

Fish Bone Diagram is very important to note the advantages and disadvantages that can present themselves when using this root cause analysis tool.

Advantages :

1. It help’s to identify the possible cause and effect relationships with underlying problems.
2. It help’s to facilitate joint brainstorming discussions.
3. The brainstorming process encourages broad thinking, keeping teams from limited thinking patterns that can lead to getting stuck.
4. The process of asking why something happened repeatedly at each stage helps drill down to one or more root causes.
5. It help’s to prioritize relevant causes, so underlying root causes are addressed first.

Disadvantages :

• The brainstorming process can produce irrelevant potential causes along with relevant causes, which can create more confusion and time drain.
• Complex diagrams with multiple factors can lead to a jumbled mess that is too difficult to display.

• Fish Bone diagrams can lend themselves to the divergent approach. This usually leads to a low success rate because of there is a limitation for any team of resources to fix every potential cause. For example, if you complete a fish Bone diagram and it has more potential causes then the team will be left feeling like the problem is too big to handle.

Important Links:

Method Statement and its benefits.

How does PV solar cells generates electricity

Failure Mode Effect Analysis (FMEA)

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