Fishbone Diagram BMAN Marines

A fishbone diagram is a line based diagram to show and present problems based on a bigger problem. It’s also called Ishikawa, Herringbone, Cause-and-effect or fishikawa diagram. It was created by Kaoru Ishikawa and it represents the causes of a specific event. The fishbone diagram is normally used for product design and quality defect prevention, to detect overall problems. Causes and problems are usually categorised to identify the causes of variation. 

The categories include:

·         Actors – People associated with the process

·         Processes – The methods that’s is performed

·         Equipment – Any machines, computers of tools that is required to finish the job.

·         Materials – Pens, papers, parts and other materials

·         Measurements – Data captured to validate quality

·         Environment – the area, location or place where the diagram is needed

It is in the shape of a fish, that includes a backbone which has a head that is the main problem, and then it has smaller bones coming out of the backbone basically including the causes and effects generated by the main problem.

How to draw:

The first step is to identify the problem usually the main problem that you want to solve with the fishbone diagram. Draw a box or circle around it. This is the head of the fish. Then draw the smaller bones coming out of the backbone, normally six or seven bones. Divide the smaller bones evenly for the top and the bottom of the backbone. Draw the smaller bones diagonally towards the head or main problem. Identify causes and smaller problems that can result in the primary effect and label them each on the smaller bones. The causes can include actors, processes, equipment, materials, measurements or environment. Other causes can also be included on the small bones. Repeat this cycle over and over again until the diagram is filled up with all possible causes under every category.

Suggested Categories:

Service Industries:

The four p’s (Plant/technology, People, policies, procedures)

Manufacturing Industries:

The 6 m’s (Manpower, Machines, Methods, Mother Nature, Materials, Measurements)

Process Steps:

1.       Determine Customers

2.       Advertise products

3.       Incent product

4.       Sell Product

5.       Ship product

6.       Provide Upgrade

The fishbone diagram encourages people to consider each and every aspect of the topic or problem of interest to enlighten the parts relative to the importance towards the main problem. It also helps to establish a logical sequence for handling various parts of a problem in a systematic way and enables the person to see the parts within the whole.