Management tools for quality control ensure businesses can track internal processes, lower costs and optimize resources. Tools are also practical because they help achieve organizational goals.
5 Management Tools for Quality Control
These tools are perfect for many problem-solving situations and can be used in many ways. Let’s see what they are.
Flowcharts
Flowcharts are one of the well-known management tools for quality control. The software is used to document processes in companies. Flowcharts are an easy way to represent how the procedures in the company work and determine if there should be improvements.
Also, Flowcharts can be beneficial in cases where the company needs to implement changes in the workflow. With these tools, management can bring about improvements.
Check Sheet
A check sheet is a management tool for quality control aimed at collecting data. A check sheet is handy in cases where you want to know how many times a particular incident happened, for example.
Speaking of this, check sheets are especially beneficial for human resources teams when they want to collect more data about employees.
Check sheets are also terrific in situations when the human resources team, for example, wants to find frequently asked questions. This can help them efficiently share information with employees and decrease the number of questions.
Control Charts
Control charts or statistical process controls are management tools that determine whether business processes are in control. If a control chart shows business processes are in control, no changes are required, and processes can run as usual.
But if they show business processes are not under control, users can also learn more about the source causing variation. All control charts are actually graphs with one central line, one upper control line, and one lower control line.
Pareto Charts
A Pareto chart is a graph that groups data. Data is grouped into segments or categories that can be related to cost, time, defects, etc. In a pareto chart, the left side represents the frequency of occurrences, and the right side presents the cumulative percentage of the total number of events.
Based on the data groupings, pareto charts will give insights into the largest areas of concern for business.
Histograms
A histogram is a bar chart that shows how a particular pattern falls into different conditions. This management tool for quality control also gives necessary information about the shape and spread of particular data. A histogram uses numerical information and displays the data in a visual format.
If you want to create a histogram, you have to divide values into intervals (of 5, 10, 15, or more, for example). These intervals are called “bins.” Each interval should be the same size and must not overlap with other intervals.
It is also crucial to mention histograms are different than bar charts. Histograms represent continuous data in equal intervals. There is no gap between interludes in a histogram, and histograms are used to show the cause of the problem.
Wrapping up
There are many management tools for quality control, but the five we mentioned are the most common.
Based on what you need, you will use the tools for the following:
- Flowcharts – shows processes in the company
- Check sheets – collect data
- Control charts – check the state of business processes
- Pareto charts – group data to show the biggest problems for the business
- Histograms – discover the cause of the problem