What are the causes of customer complaints?
- What causes equipment downtime?
- What causes infections in our hospital?
- Why does it take so long to close the books each month?
- How do we achieve our goal of no lost-time-accidents?
The cause and effect (fishbone) diagram is a great tool for finding the causes of a problem or figuring out what you need to do to reach a goal.
Watch a Video Highlighting How to Make a Cause and Effect (Fishbone) Diagram with SPC for Excel!
Join those in over 60 countries using SPC for Excel !
Cause and Effect Diagrams and SPC for Excel
Our software, SPC for Excel, makes it easy to construct a cause and effect diagram using Excel. A blank cause and effect diagram is inserted into your workbook when you select the fishbone icon from the SPC for Excel ribbon. The diagram has the major cause categories: machines, measurement, methods, materials, people and environment. These can be changed. There is an "Add Item" button that allows you to add a new item to the diagram and then simply drag the item under the major cause where it belongs. There is also an "Add Sub-Item" button that allows you put causes at a diagonal under the items.