In the Red Bead Experiment, a small proportion of red beads are interspersed with white beads. In this model, the white beads are desirable by the customer whereas the red beads are not and can be considered as errors. The employee receives instructions on how to collect the beads properly and proceeds to do so. The results are then tallied documenting the number of errors (red beads) which are identified. There are a number of interpretations of the data derived from this experiment (Appendix 1). This paper will discuss three of those interpretations.
Interpretation 1
In the first interpretation I have chosen, the observation is that inspection after the process is complete does not improve quality, but merely catches defects before they leave the plant. The quality inspectors were not adding value to the process. Furthermore, since the inspection process is imperfect, it is reasonable to assume that some defective products still made it to the customer.
Walter Shewhart developed a theory of variability that attributed the sources of variability as either assignable cause or chance-cause variation (Brombacher & Montgomery, 2011). Essentially, this can be pictured as a control chart with a …show more content…
In healthcare, it is important to identify errors as a means to identify opportunities to strengthen systems to protect patients and minimize the potential for future occurrences. In a recent study, researchers investigated characteristics associated with an increased fear of repercussions in nurses and physicians located in three Canadian provinces (Castel, Ginsburg, Zaheer & Tamim, 2015). In this study, organizational and unit leadership support for reporting errors explained the most fear. In other words, nurses and physicians felt safest reporting errors when there was strong administrative support for reporting the
Interpretation 1
In the first interpretation I have chosen, the observation is that inspection after the process is complete does not improve quality, but merely catches defects before they leave the plant. The quality inspectors were not adding value to the process. Furthermore, since the inspection process is imperfect, it is reasonable to assume that some defective products still made it to the customer.
Walter Shewhart developed a theory of variability that attributed the sources of variability as either assignable cause or chance-cause variation (Brombacher & Montgomery, 2011). Essentially, this can be pictured as a control chart with a …show more content…
In healthcare, it is important to identify errors as a means to identify opportunities to strengthen systems to protect patients and minimize the potential for future occurrences. In a recent study, researchers investigated characteristics associated with an increased fear of repercussions in nurses and physicians located in three Canadian provinces (Castel, Ginsburg, Zaheer & Tamim, 2015). In this study, organizational and unit leadership support for reporting errors explained the most fear. In other words, nurses and physicians felt safest reporting errors when there was strong administrative support for reporting the