Fishbones and Paretos

I'm sitting in class on this beautiful Saturday afternoon waiting for the other's to get back from lunch. We've been at it all morning, and we still have 4 more hours to go. The class is Quality Systems and today's topics are the quality tools. You might think that I would find this uninteresting, but the truth is, this has always been one of my favorite topics. I got my introduction into Quality Systems when I was at Exxon back in the late 80's. My teacher was the quality "guru" there at Mt. Belvieu and I learned that I really enjoyed the topic. When I went to Union Carbide, quality tools was not high on the list of tasks that I was involved in, but when I moved to Dow Freeport, I was back in the game again, and loving it. This time, the topic had grown to include the Six Sigma methodology, something else that I found fascinating. So, here I am once again spending my Saturday reviewing fishbone diagrams (Ishikawa diagrams), Pareto charts, and histograms. This afternoon, we are moving on to my all-time favorite...control charts. Hmm...10 more minutes...I guess I should make a drink/bathroom run then get back in here ready for more. Bye!