Glossary
Whether you’re new to the quality and continuous improvement arena or a seasoned expert seeking detailed information on a specific quality topic, you should find what you need in our Glossary of Terms.
Explore the concepts, tools, applications and technical terms that make up the world of continuous improvement.
p Chart
A p-Chart is a statistical analysis technique for determining if a measurement process has gone out of statistical control. The chart is sensitive to changes in the proportion of defective items in the measurement process. The p-Chart plots the percentage of defectives and is typically used for unequal sample sizes.
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P Value
The P Value is a value that originates from the data set and is used to provide the exact level of significance.
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Pareto Chart
A Pareto Chart is a bar chart that presents categorical data in descending order of frequency. The Pareto effect operates in quality improvement, demonstrating that 80 percent of problems usually stem from 20 percent of the causes. Pareto charts arrange data so that the few vital factors that are causing most of the problems reveal themselves. In seeking continuous improvement by concentrating an organisations efforts on these few will have a greatest and most cost beneficial impact.
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Parts Per Million (PPM)
When Motorola developed the Six Sigma concept a realisation that technology would change the way we need to think about quality and especially about manufacturing non-conformance rates occurred. With automated processes responsible for much of current manufacturing, quality levels should be very high and this supposition bought about a change to what is acceptable in terms of non-conformance to agreed quality levels. That change was to move from expressing and measuring quality levels in percentages of parts per hundred to one of measuring defects level in terms of Parts Per Million.
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Physical Process Map
Also called a spaghetti diagram, it is a form of layout diagram of the work area and one which illustrates the path followed by materials or parts through the facility. It can be used to highlight excessive amounts of material transport or employee movement while following steps described in a logical flow map or process flow chart.
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Poisson Distribution
The Poisson Distribution is a probability distribution which is a pictorial method often used to describe the number of occurrences per unit interval of time or space.
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Poke-yoke
Poka-yoke, also called Error Proofing, is a simple device or series of techniques that help operators avoid mistakes by addressing them at their source. Poka-yoke is Japanese for mistake proofing and approach is used to either prevent the special causes that result in defects or to inexpensively inspect each item that is produced to determine whether it is acceptable or defective.
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Precision
Precision is the degree to which further measurements or calculations will show the same or similar results.
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Probability
Probability is the measure of the likelihood of occurrence of a given event.
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Probability Distribution
A Probability Distribution is a table, graph or formula that describes the probabilities of all of the possible outcomes of an experiment.
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Process
A Process is a series of activities, administrative or production oriented, which are usually performed in a particular sequence to accomplish a specific objective or produce a desired product.
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Process Capability
Process Capability compares the actual output performance of an in-control process to the specification limits, which is the spread of the process values, (Width) as measured by 6 process standard deviation units.
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Process Flow Chart
A Process Flow Chart is a diagram that describes in sequence all of the major steps and decision points of a process.
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Process Observation Chart
A Process Observation Chart is a table used to record specific attributes of each step while carefully watching the process. The attributes of interest usually include the type of process step, including operation, transportation, inspection, waiting, storage or decision, quantity, distance, and elapsed time.
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Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)
The Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) Chart is a project management tool used for depicting task, duration, and dependency information for a project. Each chart measures scheduled project milestones, checkpoints, or review points and the PERT chart will note that all tasks terminate at the review node.
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Pull System
A Pull Sydnem is a production strategy which requires downstream process steps to signal the need for replenishment, before activity in each of the previous (upstream) process steps is initiated.
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Push System
A Push System is a batch and queue production strategy which produces product by controlling the input or the front end of the process.