Risk Analysis

Why – why, why, why, why?

Five whys is a method of finding the root cause of a problem. It was developed within Toyota – either by Sakichi Toyoda or Taiichi Ohno, depending on the website you find – and continues to be one of the root tools used by that company to find root causes of issues and problems. ThereContinue reading “Why – why, why, why, why?”

How to assess RISK

One of the things all engineers should know how to do is to express risk in terms that can be measured. Here’s how to do that. RISK = Severity x Occurrence The common understanding of numerical risk assessment considers severity and occurrence by weighting them (multiplying) against each other. This was established by the militaryContinue reading “How to assess RISK”

Sample Sizes

I was asked by some friends to share what I use for figuring out how many samples are needed, usually for setup or creating protocols. I have posted this in the Download section of sigmakatadojo.com for anyone who would like it. The secret (it’s no secret) is that a sample of one is not valid,Continue reading “Sample Sizes”