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Distinguishing between grasping the current situation and factor analysis

In a general sense, "factor analysis" is usually included in "understanding the current situation", but in the QC story, we will consider it separately. And it is a very important procedure to divide.

In addition, although there are no steps named "Understanding the current situation" and "Factor analysis" in the task achievement type QC story , if you cannot think of a measure to achieve the task, or if you have a firm grasp of the validity of the measure. If you want, "Understanding the current situation" and "Factor analysis" are useful.

From the above, this page is referred to as "understanding the current situation" and "factor analysis", but it is not just about problem-solving QC stories in which these words are clearly used .

Positioning of current situation understanding and factor analysis

The actual problem-solving QC story is more detailed, but the point here is the relationship of the following three stages.

• Understanding the current situation :Find out what is happening. Examine the result system.
• Factor analysis :Analyze the cause. Investigate the causal system.
• Planning and implementation of measures :Decide how to proceed in the future and implement

When something goes wrong, people tend to talk about "what to do about it !?", but the point is that there are two steps before that.

Also, when something goes wrong, it is easy to talk about "what is the cause !?", but the point is that there is one step before that.

It is within the scope of my experience, but the efficiency and results of the subsequent process will change significantly depending on the content of the current situation.

Understanding the current situation

There are many ways to say "understand the current situation", so here are some examples.

• See how the values ??deviate from the histogram. See the overall distribution
• Look at the trend of value output on a line graph. "Is it going up gradually?", "Is it sudden?", "Is it going up or down?", "Is it a specific period?"
• Observe the actual condition closely
• Check what happened
• Check in as much detail as possible when, who, where, what, how
• Check the rules. (If you don't have a business flow or runbook, ask a detailed person)

To reiterate at the beginning, "understanding the current situation" in the QC story is different from "understanding the current situation" in the general sense. In a general sense, "understanding the current situation" is a combination of "understanding the current situation" and "analyzing factors" in the QC story.

Understanding the current situation in a QC story does not include investigating the causal system or investigating the relationship between cause and effect. Examine only the result system.

If you have a solid grasp of the current situation, you may be able to understand the countermeasures at that point. In addition, the factors that must be investigated in the next factor analysis can be narrowed down considerably, so factor analysis is easy and efficient.

A common mistake is to start working on the causal system without investigating the resulting system. As a feeling, I want to start working on the cause area quickly, but if I start working on the cause system before the result system is clear, I get "I don't know anything" or "re-examine the result system". It tends to be.

That said, in reality, there are times when something related to the cause comes out in the process of understanding the current situation. Therefore, it may not be clear to distinguish between the contents of the current situation and the analysis of the next factor, but at least at the stage of grasping the current situation, those who have withheld the decision that "the cause is this". Is good.

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