QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Cause and Effect Diagram Activities

In this class example, we are going to consider the problems behind a cooking process. Cooking rice is very similar to a production process in a factory. The rice (raw material) is washed (pretreatment), then placed in a pot (equipment) to be heated and steamed (second treatment). The current rice process is producing bland tasting rice. We are now going to consider what steps could be the problem behind our bad product using Cause and Effect Diagram.

a. The Process Steps are:

1.Raw Material - receiving and storage

2.Pretreatment - washing and drying of the rice

3.Cooking - equipment, pots, time vs. temperature, etc.

4.Second Treatment - Steaming and precooking the rice

5.Cooling and Packaging - Time, temperature and storage