23.Advanced Control [Charts]

X-bar & R Chart

  • Data is variable (continuous)
  • Data can be grouped into subgroups, letting you chart the mean of each group

o Production mean per hour

o Average answer speed of phones per hour

o Average number of customers each day

o Defects per hour

  • Data count in each subgroup is less than 8 (although you can use the x-bar & R chart for subgroup sizes up to 100 in Minitab)
  • Presents two charts

o The x-bar control chart plots the mean of each subgroup

o The R chart plots the range

X-bar & S Chart

  • Data is variable (continuous)
  • Data can be grouped into subgroups, letting you chart the mean of each group
  • Data count in each subgroup is more than 8
  • Sigma can be easily calculated (otherwise, use x-bar &R)
  • Presents two charts

o The x-bar control chart plots the mean of each subgroup

o The S chart plots the standard deviation

I & MR Chart

  • Data is variable (continuous)
  • Data cannot be easily grouped into reasonable subgroups, so you must track individual data points instead of subgroup means

o Data is very difficult or expensive to obtain

o Production is very slow, so waiting for enough data to create subgroups would take too much time (for example, tracking data about surgeries performed in a small outpatient facility)

o Products have a low cycle time

P-Chart

  • Data is discrete
  • Data is presented as a percent (percent defective) rather than a count
  • Doesn’t require a constant sample/subgroup size
  • Plots the proportion of units that are nonconforming (are defective, don’t meet specifications)
  • Use when:

o it is impossible, very time-consuming, or not financially feasible to measure or analyze numerical measurements

o sample or subgroup sizes are not equal, so the percent of defect is more important that the number of defects per group (as you can’t compare numbers in a smaller group with numbers in a larger group accurately)

o data is rate-based because it comes from a binomial or attribute process: the measurement or process is pass/fail, go/no go, etc. You can’t plot 1 or 0 on a control chart, but you can plot the percent of 1 or 0 in each sample.

NP-Chart

  • Data is discrete
  • Data is presented as a percent (percent defective) rather than a count
  • Does require a constant sample size to be of use; other than this, you can use it for anything that you would use a p-chart for
  • Plots the number of units that are nonconforming in each sample size

U-Chart

  • Data is discrete
  • Data is presented as a count (number of defects)
  • Doesn’t require a constant sample/subgroup size
  • Plots the number of defects per unit
  • Use when data is about the defects themselves, not the overall defective product

C-Chart

  • Data is discrete
  • Data is presented as a count (number of defects)
  • Does require a constant sample/subgroup size
  • Plots the number of defects per sample
  • Use when data is about the defects themselves, not the overall defective product