Four Ways to Measure Improvement Using Before/After Control Charts With Stages

Simple but powerful tools to help determine whether a process is in control

Everyone has their own favorite graph type or visual tool. I’m not ready to declare this my favorite yet, but this oldie but goodie has got to get more time and attention. That’s right: I’m talking about control charts with stages, also sometimes called before/after control charts.

If you’re not familiar with them, we put out a great blog at Minitab to explain what they are and how to build one. In a nutshell, they are control charts that help analyze a process before and after an improvement, monitoring not only the change but how the process means and variability changed because of the improvement. This gives extra insight, not only into the improvement’s effect but also as to whether it’s part of a stable process (and sustainable).

Now that you’re familiar with the utility of before/after control charts, here are four ways you might want to use this type of visualization.

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PuMP Blueprint

Readers may also want to check out Stacey Barr's PuMP Blueprint program for implementing continual improvement. We found it to be very useful in our Production Department.

The Process Behavior Chart is covered in Step 6.

https://www.staceybarr.com/about/pump/

https://www.staceybarr.com/products/pumpblueprintworkshop/

Check out Stacey's interview with Dr. Donald Wheeler on interpreting signals from KPIs.

https://www.staceybarr.com/measure-up/interview-donald-wheeler-on-interpreting-signals-from-our-kpis/

Automating Process Changes in Control Charts

QI Macros Process Change Wizard will automatically identify process changes (trends and runs) and adjust the chart for you.

Stacy Barr and Donald Wheeler

Stacy Barr and Donald Wheeler make a winning team. Stacy lays the groundwork to develop KPIs in a thoughtful manner that will be meaningful, get accepted and used by management to align performance measures to strategy assuring right actions are taken to reach targets. She uses process behavior charts but instead of having red lines for the natural process limits she uses a light blue area fill to color between the natural process limits. This is much more impactful to the eye and makes it easier to tell a story about the usefulness of process behavior charts. Kudos to her for this advancement. We are considering adding this to our Process Behavior Charting Excel AddIn called http://www.PBCharts.com