Statistical Thinking

1) What is Statistical Thinking ?

"Statistical Thinking is a philosophy of learning and action."

In case we acquire useful knowledge from information and manage properly information through knowledge, we depend on the past experiences and knowledge a lot.
But Statistical Thinking is to evaluate the present process based on the given data rather than the past experiences.
How many times have you head of the followings ?

These attitudes are such big obstacles to Innovation activity.
This is because people have difficulties to escape from own thinking upon the past experiences.
We rarely ask ¡°why ?¡±. But children always do.
They learn and acquire new information by why-question then decide upon knowledge what a proper action they should do.
The organization(company) has no chance to improve without why-question.
Through why-question, the organization could find the causes and manage to remove them properly.

This leads the organization to accumulate ¡®Process Knowledge¡¯ inside and to build up the foundation strengthening the competitiveness.

Therefore, the basic philosophy of 6 Sigma Activity is ;
Instead of depending on the past experiences, we do why-question and learn to find the proper way to manage.

2) Principle of Statistical Thinking I.
All work occurs in a system of interconnected processes

We do general works inside the organization.
But now we need to change our thinking that work equals process, instead of working itself.
If we change ¡®work¡¯ as ¡®process¡¯, 5 factors of process, so-called SIPOC should be considered accordingly.
The first step of improvement activity is to clarify what SIPOC are.

Supplier --> Input --> Process --> Output --> Customer

Here we simply explain to you about 5 factors in process.
Actually the internal process of organization(company) is one system connected from each department to customer.
In each internal process, there is always the customer. In other words, customers are divided into internal and external one.
Once internal customers satisfy with us, it influences to external ones automatically. Each of them has their needs and wants. When we can fulfill what they need and want, it could be a perfect system then.

2) Principle of Statistical Thinking II.
"Variation exists in all processes

All processes provide customers with output all the time.
However, the problem is that output is changing, not fixed. We call it ¡®variation¡¯.
The second step is to accept there is variation in Output. This variation does not occur in Output but in supplier, input or process.
The main causes are divided into 5M1E.
Men -- causes related to individual style, gap of ability
Machine -- causes related to gap of function, age of equipment
Materials -- causes related to input materials
Methods -- causes related to work process
Measurements -- causes related to accuracy and precision of measuring equipment
Environment -- causes related to process environment including working environment and laws

2) Principle of Statistical Thinking III.
"Understanding and reducing variation are key success"

Now we understand there is variation in process all the time. This could be a cause of customer dissatisfaction as well.
For variation, we will handle in detail in the chapter of understanding Variation?

Therefore, the core innovation activity is to reduce Variation to provide customers with a stable output.
For this, we should optimize all processes.
A famous Doctor Deming even mentioned Variation is an evil?

Recently, we respect the diversity of individuals in the company to emphasize the creativity.
If the variation occurs from the diversity, it could be another problem.
So we should consider variety with Variation?