Quality Tool - Data Collection-

<p>This week I will keep my promise of introducing Data Collection, the most misunderstood quality tool&hellip;.the hatchery for COPQ.</p>
<p><strong>Context</strong></p>
<p>How often has your boss instructed you: Go get the data.</p>
<p>You toil for 10 days and return with the data you believe what your boss wanted.</p>
<p>The boss is enraged: This is not the data I wanted!</p>
<p>Your mind runs: What question were you seeking an answer to, boss?</p>
<p>Can you trace the COPQ?</p>
<p><strong>Data and Information</strong></p>
<p>Quality Improvement is an information-intensive activity. We need clear, useful information about problems and their causes in order to make improvements.</p>
<p>In many cases, the absence of relevant information is the major reason why problems go unsolved. For long periods of time. Adding to the COPQ.</p>
<p>Most organizations have tons of data and facts about their operations. However, when quality improvement teams start working on a project, they often find that the information they need does not exist.</p>
<p>Let me explain the difference between&nbsp;<em>data</em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>information</em>:</p>
<ul>
<li>Data = Facts</li>
<li>Information = Answers to Questions</li>
<li>Information includes Data</li>
<li>Data does not necessarily include Information.</li>
</ul>
<p>Quality improvement teams seek answers to questions:</p>
<ul>
<li>How often does the problem occur?</li>
<li>What is causing the problem?</li>
</ul>
<p>In other words they are seeking information.</p>
<p>But, while good information is always based on data (facts), simply collecting some data does not ensure useful information.</p>
<p><strong>How do we generate useful information?</strong></p>
<p><img src="http://sureshlulla.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Quality-Capsule_-Inside-Article-Diagram-014.png" alt="" /></p>
<p>Information generation begins and ends with questions. To generate information, we need to:</p>
<ul>
<li>Formulate precisely the question we are trying to answer</li>
<li>Collect the data and facts relating to that question</li>
<li>Analyse the data with quality tools</li>
<li>Present the data in a way that clearly communicates the answer to the question.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Key Skill</strong></p>
<p>Learning to &ldquo;ask the right questions&rdquo; is the key skill for effective data collection.</p>
<p>Accurate and precise data collected through an elaborately designed statistical sampling plan is of no use if it does not clearly address a question that someone needs an answer to.</p>
<p><strong>Insight</strong></p>
<p>The planning for data collection process works backwords through the model in the figure.</p>
<p><strong>Next</strong></p>
<p>In my next edu-blog, on Wednesday 14 October, I will introduce Pareto Analysis. This is an effective quality tool for ensuring economy of effort.</p>