Fishbone Diagram

A Fishbone diagram is a visual tool that one can use to see what could possibly affecting a system. The book Quality: a critical introduction suggests, "that the major categories such as 'Men, Machines, Material and Methods' may provide a useful first set of categories, each of these categories, each of these categories is then subdivided again, the 'fishbones' gaining further rubs and subribs as the whole issue is explored".

In an article in Tooling and Production it gives some helpful hints in creating these diagrams. "The diagram is best constructed by a group that is knowledgeable about the process at hand. The group brainstorms what variables in each category may contribute to the current problem.This exercise stirs the thought processes of the group's members and extracts core process knowledge to identify likely contributing factors." So if you are an outside consultant hired to go into a company to see what you can do to help the company streamline its operations this can be a very useful tool. You may want to gather together those who are in different levels of the "company food chain" to better understand the companies needs to create a better working environment.

The Vanderbilt University School of Engineering has a great diagram that we can look at and then break it down to better understand the fishbone diagram.


The diagram is trying to dissect why a company may have unhappy workers. Listed are four areas where there could be potential problems, environment, workers, management, and machines. We can see that branching off of these areas:

• The environment is to hot
• The workers feel like they have not been adequately trained
• The machines are to old

I'm sure that there are many other reasons why the workers may be unhappy however you can get a good idea on why these workers are unhappy with the information provided in the diagram.

In conclusion you should try using a fishbone diagram in the next system analysis that you do. It will provide you with a great physical representation of what problems exist in a system so that you can better analyze what solutions will best fit for your company.


Bibliography
Maze-Emery, Elizabeth. "Knowing the cause is half the battle." Tooling and Production
Nov.-Dec. 2008: 28-29. Print. (Beckford, John. Quality An Introduction. 1st ed. New York: Routledge, 2002. Print.