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History Typical Histogram Shapes How Histograms work? Histograms in Quality What can it do for you? Advantages Disadvantages Key Facts

History
The word histogram is derived from Greek word histos anything set upright' (as the masts of a ship, the bar of a loom, or the vertical bars of a histogram). It is one of the seven basic tools of quality control used to summarize, display and analyze process data. Karl Pearson, 18571936, introduced it as a way of showing the probability distribution of a continuous variable. Histogram Cause and Effect Diagram Check Sheet Pareto Diagram Flow Chart Scatter Diagram Control Chart

When to use a Histogram?

When the data are numerical. When you want to see the shape of the datas distribution, especially when determining whether the output of a process is distributed approximately normally. When analyzing whether a process can meet the customers requirements. When analyzing what the output from a suppliers process looks like. When seeing whether a process change has occurred from one time period to another. When determining whether the outputs of two or more processes are different. When you wish to communicate the distribution of data quickly and easily to others.

Typical Histogram Shapes

Normal. A common pattern is the bellshaped curve known as the normal distribution. In a normal distribution, points are as likely to occur on one side of the average as on the other.

Skewed. The skewed distribution is asymmetrical because a natural limit prevents outcomes on one side. The distributions peak is off center toward the limit and a tail stretches away from it.

Typical Histogram Shapes

Double-peaked or bimodal. The bimodal distribution looks like the back of a two-humped camel. The outcomes of two processes with different distributions are combined in one set of data.

Truncated or heart-cut. The truncated distribution looks like a normal distribution with the tails cut off. The supplier might be producing a normal distribution of material and then relying on inspection to separate what is within specification limits from what is out of spec.

Typical Histogram Shapes

Comb. In a comb distribution, the bars are alternately tall and short. This distribution often results from rounded-off data and/or an incorrectly constructed histogram.

Edge peak. The edge peak distribution looks like the normal distribution except that it has a large peak at one tail. Usually this is caused by faulty construction of the histogram, with data lumped together into a group labeled greater than

How Histograms Work?

First, you need to pick a process to analyze. Next, you need a large amount of data, at least 100 data values so that patterns can become visible. Then, you need to assemble a table of the data values that you collected with regards to frequency of data values. Next, you need to calculate some statistics for the Histogram, including: mean, minimum, maximum, standard deviation, class width, number of classes, sleekness, and kurtosis. Then, you actually create the Histogram using these statistics. After you have created a Histogram, it will take one of five shapes:

Histograms in Quality
An important aspect of total quality is the identification and control of all the sources of variation so that processes produce essentially the same result again and again. A histogram is a tool that allows you to understand at a glance the variation that exists in a process.

Although the histogram is essentially a bar chart, it creates a lumpy distribution curve that can be used to help identify and eliminate the causes of process variation. Histograms are especially useful in the measure, analyze and control phases of the Lean Six Sigma methodology.

What can it do for you?

A histogram will show you the central value of a characteristic produced by your process, and the shape and size of the dispersion on either side of this central value. The shape and size of the dispersion will help identify otherwise hidden sources of variation. The data used to produce a histogram can ultimately be used to determine the capability of a process to produce output that consistently falls within specification limits.

Advantages
1. Histogram is visually strong. It gives a visual indication of distribution of a dataset, and makes it easier to perform calculations and to easily understand the summary about certain data. 2. A histogram provides a way to display the frequency of occurrences of data along an interval and shows the shape of the distribution for a large set of data. 3. Works well when the data has a really big range, there is one set of data and the data is collected using a frequency table. 4. Histograms are useful and easy; apply to continuous, discrete and even unordered data.

Disadvantages
1.In Histogram we cannot read exact values because data is

grouped into categories.

2.It is more difficult to compare two data sets, as it is used only with continuous data.

3.A histogram can present data that is misleading

4.The use of intervals prevents the calculation of exact measure of central tendency. 5. In fact the Histogram table is a static table that will not update if we subsequently change the data.

Key Facts
In a histogram the bars must touch. If the bars are not touching the graph is not a histogram, it is a bar graph. Histograms allow the CBO to make a better choice between index access and table scan and are therefore only needed for indexed columns.

When collecting a histogram, the greater the number of buckets the higher the accuracy.
If I have the time window, there is no harm in collecting histograms on all columns. Except for software quality Histogram used in photography widely for quality assessment.

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