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Poor product quality is a threat to any business. Product quality is one of the keys to a successful business. Good quality product earns consumers’ trust no matter how costly it is. Workers’ skill, raw material, technology, equipment condition, working environment, supply and storage condition of raw materials, training, educational background, and personal issues affect the product quality a lot. Here is the structure of the fishbone diagram with my cause analysis.

Poor Product Quality
  Raw materials issue

•         Poor quality
•         Impurities/ contamination
•         Physical damage
•         Inadequate storage
•         Past use-by date

  Staff issue

•         Fatigue/ Illness
•         Lack of attention or concentration
•         Inexperience
•         Insufficient skills or training

Equipment issue

•         Compatibility issues
•         Poor maintenance
•         Well past use-by date
•         Deformed tool set

Technology issue

•         Inadequate/ unavailable tools
•         Poor documentation
•         Untested technology
•         Obsolete technology

  Process issue

•         Not in steady state
•         Poor quality control
•         Too many bottlenecks

Work environment issue

•         Adverse weather
•         Improper illumination
•         Sub-optimal temperature or humidity

This fishbone is just a sample which shows how to arrange the causes and sub-causes hierarchically. It can be reused or restructured for any other problems.

Who should use the Poor Product Quality template?

• This template is good guidance to anyone who wants to know the reasons for a low quality product and also wants to improve it.

Why use this template?

• Visual analysis of any problem is simple and easy to understand..
• Quick customization of templates in the smartQED environment.
• Cater to future problem analysis by reusing the existing templates.

Curated from community experience and public sources:

• https://www.conceptdraw.com/examples/fishbone-diagram-poor-quality-of-product
• https://www.qualitygurus.com/causes-of-poor-quality/