Transitioning to Agile? What Project Managers Must Know About This Hot Methodology
How Agile Has Become the Talk of the Town and What it Means to Be Left Behind Walk into any business conference or eavesdrop on any discussion with managers and execs in the corporate world and the term, Agile, invariably pops up along with associated terms such as Kanban, Scrum, and DevOps. While these terms […]
Is India on the Brink of a Serious Economic Crisis?
Widening Current Account Deficit The first and most important problem facing the Indian economy is the widening current account deficit or the CAD. The CAD refers to the difference between the exports and the imports, which is always a deficit for countries like India that are dependent on imports of oil for their economy. However, […]
What is Disaster Recovery Plan ?
Imagine that you are running a small scale organization and have been in business for over five years. You have managed to streamline all processes online including purchasing, payroll, invoicing and accounting etc. It is quite likely that you will not have paid any thought to taking backup of your data on systems. Even if […]
Inventory Costs – Ordering Cost, Carrying Cost and Stock Out Cost
Inventory procurement, storage and management is associated with huge costs associated with each these functions. Inventory costs are basically categorized into three headings: Ordering Cost Carrying Cost Shortage or stock out Cost & Cost of Replenishment Cost of Loss, pilferage, shrinkage and obsolescence etc. Cost of Logistics Sales Discounts, Volume discounts and other related costs. […]
ERISA Act – The Government Mandated Stock Market Crash
America is sitting on a demographic time bomb. Their economy boomed thanks to the “baby boomers” that brought prosperity to the nation. However, they have got old and now is the time for them to retire and be replaced by a younger generation. The problem is that the number of people retiring is far more […]
In the equation - Y = f(X), Y is the dependent variable and it is dependent on the variable X. In other words, when there is a change in value of X then value of Y will automatically change. The following are the characteristics of both types of variables:
| Y | X |
| Dependent variable | Independent variable |
| Output of the process | Input to the process |
| Effect | Cause |
| Symptom | Problem |
| It is monitored | It is controlled |
It is important to know that the variable or the factor that we want to improve is a Y or an X. If the variable under control is a Y then we should identify the Xs or the independent variables that affect Y and we should focus on improving the Xs and thereby improving the Y. There could be more one X that influences the Y and we should try to brainstorm along with the team to identify as many Xs as possible and then perform Pareto analysis or other prioritization tools to identify the critical Xs that impact our Y.
Customer is the person (whether internal or external to the organization) who uses the output that the organization produces. A customer could be
Customer requirements can be defined as the needs of the customer and his expectations from the output that the organization is producing and delivering. When the organization is able to meet all the customer requirements then it will lead to Customer Satisfaction. On the contrary, if the organization is unable to meet the customer requirements then the customers will be dissatisfied and over the period of time they will turn away from the organization’s product. Customer requirements are also called Voice of the customer - “VOC”.
While performing the above the following questions should be asked:
CTQ stands for ‘Critical to Quality’. In other words it represents the critical requirements of the output. CTQ’s could be derived from Customer requirements, Risks, Economics and Regulations. For eg a CTQ could be on-time delivery or accuracy etc. It is very critical to identify and define CTQs appropriately because it depicts the quality parameters that relate to wants and needs of the customer.
Once we have collected the voice of the customer (VOC) we then will have to arrive at Critical to Quality (CTQ) elements so that the customer requirements can be incorporated into our process and the output can be produced as desired by the customer.
Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *
The Cost of Poorly Performing Processes – Need for Six Sigma
February 12, 2025
