7 New Quality Tool: Affinity Diagram

Assalamualaikum and a very good day I wish to you all readers,

As I have promised before, I'm gonna explain the quality tools in a more in-depth and efficient method, via application! So, in my 4th semester in UNIKL MITEC, I'm taking the Innovation and Creativity Circle (ICC) competition subject. It's basically a mini convention of quality improvements among students taking the subject.

Luckily for my friends and I, we have given the opportunity to apply ICC into a real life industry in a certain company. That company is~~~~~ PSB Decorations Sdn Bhd. For more information about this company, you may refer PSB facebook and PSB blog @ website. HOWEVER, due to P&C and copyright possibilities, I won't give out the examples below from the real data. Instead I would simulate the application in another industry.

So,

As I mentioned in my previous post, there are 7 new quality tools and the first one is affinity diagram. Hurm, I'm sure new readers would not be clear on its usage so I'll summed it up as a tool for BRAINSTORMING.

How to use it? I'll give example base on a restaurant establishment (product + service sector)

1. Select the circle members. The best would be several member from a different department. For example: one manager, one supervisor, one waiter/waitress, one bartender, one cook, one cleaner/dishwasher guy , one accountant and one boss/board member.
2. Select the idea/ issue/ problem/ complaint/ improvement to be made. For example: cleanliness issue; ministry of health coming for a check up.
3. Give everyone a few set of small paper to write down. You may set the limit to be 10, 30, 100, 200 or what ever number u desire. The higher the number, the better. I would suggest to try 5 paper for each persons for starters.
4. Ask everyone to write down ONE idea on EACH paper. The idea would depends on the issue and purpose. It may be an improvement or causes or advantages or disadvantages or anything you desire or expected. For example: improvement or ways to improve the cleanliness level in the restaurant.
5. After some consideration and everyone finished writing, collect the paper @ cards and shuffle them. Then, lay out all of them one by one on a table or a piece of board so that everyone can see it.
6. With everyone consensus, discussion and agreement, lump together ideas that are similar to each other. In addition, write down a heading for them. For example: Ideas are schedule sweeping time, allocate 15 min everyday before opening for everyone to help clean, supervisor regularly check the cleanliness level, randomly asking for feedback from customer. The heading would be schedule for the first two and quality check for the latter two.
7. Arrange the lumps or groups together systematically with their heading written on top of each groups.
8. There you go! You have just finished the BRAINSTORMING session and gain a considerable amounts of new and possible ideas!

Nevertheless, I'll give you guys some extra here for another example with picture to show how the Affinity Diagram would look like as below:

So, there you. I hope this post is beneficial on your quest of applying quality in your life. =D Spread the word, share this post if you wanted too. Knowledge is meant to be shared. That's all for this time. Thank You for reading!

rEdz