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We discussed in the last learning activity that a single histogram only tells one part of a long data story. That full story might be good to know if you want to make a truly informed business decision.
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EXAMPLE SCENARIO: You are an operations manager for a manufacturing company that produces widgets. In order for your company to meet the production rate goals, your floor needs to create 320 widgets per day. Last week’s quota was not met, and the CEO has tasked you to find out why.
You create a histogram that shows the production frequency of widgets for Monday. The graph shows that the intervals from 8:00-9:00, 11:00-12:00, and 12:00-1:00 seem to be the problem:
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Monday Histogram
Hour Intervals in Work Day
But after taking this course, you recognize that you might not be getting the full picture with just one histogram and decide to generate four more for Tuesday through Friday:
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Tuesday Histogram
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Wednesday Histogram
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Thursday Histogram
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Friday Histogram
THE REST OF THE STORY: After examining the rest of the histograms, you discover that the actual problematic time ranges are 8:00-9:00, 12:00-1:00, and 1:00-2:00.
Production during the interval of 11:00-12:00 on Monday was low due to an employee training meeting, and production improved during this time on the other days.
The dip in production between 12:00-1:00 each day is due to lunchtime, and you determine the rate is adequate during this time.
After identifying the problematic hour intervals of 8:00-9:00 and 1:00-2:00, you dig deeper and discover that employees are arriving late to work and getting back late from lunch.
Had you relied on the histogram generated from Monday’s production alone, you would have had some but not all of the story.
Power in numbers (multiple histograms) gave you the knowledge you need to appropriately identify the problem and provide corrective action to increase productivity.
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Monday Histogram
Hour Intervals in Work Day
LESSONS TO LEARN: • If you had relied on one histogram, you may have
missed the main cause of the problem• Looking at more histograms provided an more
accurate story of the data• A single histogram only tells a part of a longer story• Looking at all kinds of data over an extended period
of time provides useful knowledge about a process
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Monday Histogram
Hour Intervals in Work Day
There is power in numbers!
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Tuesday Histogram
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Wednesday Histogram
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Thursday Histogram
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Friday Histogram
CRITICAL THINKING: Have you encountered a situation where looking at a lot of data helped (or looking at little data hindered)? How was there power in numbers?
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