What is Fishbone Diagram Strategy?

Root cause analysis is also a technique in equipment maintenance, applied to find the root cause of the failure and thereby thoroughly overcome it to avoid repetition or reduce the consequences later. Usually when a problem occurs, the cause is often blamed in a roundabout way. This causes internal conflicts, as well as dishonesty, mutual blame leading to failure of communication between the parties, leading to broken activities or projects. The best way to deal with this is to identify the root cause of the problem instead of just observing the problem superficially. This systematic and structured approach is called Root Cause Analysis.

There are many application tools to develop Root Cause Analysis, the most common one used by many companies is the 5 WHY model? (5 WHY?) of the company TOYOTA. Basically, this tool is understood as using the WHY question many times until the most core element is found and must be handled. To model the process “5-WHY?” Fishbone Diagram Strategy or Ishikawa diagram is applied.

What is Fishbone Diagram Strategy?

The Fish Bone Strategy is often used to overcome problems.

This strategy was developed by the Japanese scientist (Karo Ishikawa) (1915 AD – 1989 AD), one of the Japanese pioneers in the field of quality.

Ishikawa was the first to call for the formation of a number of voluntary workers whose number ranges from 4 to 8 workers, and their task is to identify the problems they face and propose the best ways to solve them.

This Japanese scientist published a book called “A Guide to Quality Control”. He also suggested fishbone analysis charts, which resemble the skeleton of a fish. Where bones or spines represent potential causes of a particular problem, they are used to track customer complaints about quality and determine the source or sources of error or deficiencies.

The Fish bone diagram (Ishkawa) is called the cause and effect diagram. The reason for its name is that the final shape of this diagram is similar to the bones of a fish after the meat is removed from it. The head of the fish represents the main problem and each sub-bone of the spine represents the main elements of this problem.

The fishbone tool is a great tool for analyzing problems with the participation of those responsible for this problem or those responsible for the main elements that may be the cause of this problem.

Whether this problem is personal or at the level of problems of companies and organizations, small or large, this planning helps you analyze and finding all problems, no matter how small or trivial, which may be the main influencing reason for the big problem.

The application of the fishbone method helps in facilitating the knowledge of complex problems and transforming them into small problems that can be solved. This method also aims to focus attention on and maximize the positive impact, for example, a decrease in costs or an increase in the level of service quality.

The idea of this method consists of lines and symbols designed to illustrate the relationship between a set of main causes and the problem under study. Here, we note that the result or problem is on the left side of the drawing and that there is a group of main causes and their branches on the right side, and for each sub-cause there may be other sub-causes, and these causes and their branches represent the variables. The independent variable that may affect the outcome as a positive or negative dependent variable.

Fish bone diagram

The above diagram shows how to draw this diagram by placing the main problem in the head of the fish and the main elements that affect this problem. And then the problems that may be the cause of each element are extracted and sub-elements can be extracted from each main element.

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Elements of the Fishbone model:

At the top of the skeleton shows the error occurring or the effect of the error, expressed by the question

In the backbone of the individual, the main group of causes is shown

In the macula, the causes are shown in detail for each main group of causes

There are the following common backbones:

Human

Device

Resources

Information

Procedure

Measure

Environment

System

After completing the fishbone diagram system, you can quickly test your logic analysis by observing the fishbone from the top down or from the bottom like:

The error is caused by the g factor; g occurs because f; f occurs because of e; e occurs because d, d occurs because of c; c occurs because b; b happens because a

This is very important work to help you find the root cause so that you can find a solution to reduce or eliminate it.

Once you’ve identified the root cause of each fish’s backbone, circle or mark it. The golden rule is that there is rarely only one cause for every error that occurs, but often there will be quite a few factors.

A few important suggestions:

Analyzing errors requires the participation of many parties ensuring you will find the root cause more effectively

Always ask “why” until you find the root cause and it is treatable

The purpose of the fishbone is to answer a question, so it takes thinking and thinking about how to deal with the root cause.

Always make sure that those involved in the analysis have the necessary initiative and responsibility – make sure they are always an important part of this process.

Use it flexibly and creatively

Root cause analysis can be applied in many activities from software coding to finding errors, in process building, in project management, in family management, logistics management, etc.

Remember, after finding the root cause, the next thing you should always make sure is that the cause is dealt with in a systematic way. Often a Corrective Action Plan (CAP) process is built to track the improvement process.

When to use the FISHBONE tool?

When there is a need to investigate a problem to determine the root cause
When wanting to find out all possible reasons why a problem-solving process encounters difficulties, problems or failures.
When there is a need to identify areas of information collection
When you want to find out why a process is not leading to the desired results

How is the FISHBONE chart built?

Implementation steps:

Step 1: Draw a fishbone diagram

Step 2: List the main issues to be analyzed in the “fish head”

Step 3: Name each herringbone branch, for example: People, policy, work environment, method (field of analysis or cause origin)

Step 4: Use the “brainstorming” technique to identify the factors in each of the above areas that may affect the problem. The question here is “What caused it?”

Step 5: Repeat this procedure for each element of the domain to detect sub-trivial elements. Here the question is “Why did that happen?”

Step 6: Continue until no more useful information is available.

Step 7: Analyze the results of the “fishbone” after everyone in the group agrees with the information collected in each field.

Step 8: The group agrees on self-priority testing on the importance of the causes mentioned and those are the root causes that need to be remedied.

Note :

The more we practice using this method the easier and more practical it will be, that it helps us get to the real causes in a short time. It is also useful for organizing thinking since all causes are written down and what is excluded (after being crossed out) is not referred to in discussions.

Benefits of the fishbone strategy:

Participation in the process provides good opportunities for learning through group interaction that helps each individual benefit from the experiences of the rest of the participants.

It helps the group focus on a particular issue and thus exclude distracting propositions.

Push to do subsequent steps that are all detailed information.

The possibility of using it to analyze any problem in future

Draw a Fish bone Diagram

Draw a fishbone diagram, by drawing a horizontal line (the central spine of the fish) near the center of the page and drawing the fish’s head in a triangle or circle shape.

Record the main problem/issue or goal in the fish’s head.

Collect information from the participants about the main aspects of the fish’s spine, and draw lines off the central spine. We record the main elements that affect this problem in place according to the layout.

All problems that may be the cause of each component are extracted and sub-elements can be extracted from each main component. Thus, we identify the sub-causes of the main causes of the problem on the fish’s backbone branches.

Then delete the main causes/sub-elements that we determine are not the real cause of this problem. And after we cross out all the reasons that are not really related to the problem or that do not cause the problem / or to reach the goal, then it will become clear to us the reality of the rest of the causes of the main problem.

Develop a plan to address and solve the problem/issue (or to achieve the goal) by identifying the real causes and grading their real impact on the problem/issue.

What is Fishbone Diagram Strategy?