Okuzeka
Industrial Engineering & Manufacturing vocabulary · Process Improvement

Fishbone diagram

Meaning in industrial engineering & manufacturing, with examples

nounCommon term

In industrial engineering & manufacturing, fishbone diagram means: A cause-and-effect diagram shaped like a fish skeleton: the problem is the head, and the bones list possible causes in groups such as people, machine, method, material, measurement and environment.

In Turkish: balık kılçığı diyagramı, sebep-sonuç diyagramı, Ishikawa diyagramı

How it is used

Used in brainstorming sessions during root cause analysis. Teams draw or fill in a fishbone diagram, then test the most likely causes with data. It is also called an Ishikawa diagram after Kaoru Ishikawa, and the main groups are often called the 6Ms.

Example sentences

  1. We listed 23 possible causes on the fishbone diagram, but only three were confirmed by data.

  2. Let's start with a fishbone diagram and look at the machine and method branches first.

Common collocations

  • draw a fishbone diagram
  • Ishikawa diagram
  • cause-and-effect diagram
  • 6M categories
  • root cause analysisA structured way of finding the deepest reason for a problem, so that it can be fixed for good instead of only treating the symptoms. Often shortened to RCA.
  • 5 WhysA simple root cause technique in which you keep asking 'why?' about a problem, about five times, until you reach a cause you can actually fix.
  • Pareto chartA bar chart that sorts problems or causes from the most to the least frequent, with a line showing the cumulative percentage, so a team can focus on the few that matter most.
  • corrective actionAn action taken to remove the cause of a problem or nonconformance so that it does not happen again, not just to fix the affected parts.

More terms: Process Improvement

Practise with graded reading

Reading at the right level is the fastest way to make new words stick. Pick free English books by level: