The Psychology of Quality and More

A Toolbook for Quality Improvement and Problem Solving (contents)

Histogram: When to use it

The Quality Toolbook > Histogram > When to use it

When to use it | How to understand it | Example | How to do it | Practical variations

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When to use it

• Use it to investigate the distribution of a set of measurements.
• Use it when it is suspected that there are multiple factors affecting a process, to see if this shows up in the distribution.
• Use it to help define reasonable specification limits for a process by investigating the actual distribution.
• Use it when you want to see the actual shape of the distribution, as opposed to calculating single figures like the mean or standard deviation.

Fig. 1. Using the Histogram in problem solving

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