Ops Mngt Lesson 10 Exercise
This blog will apply the analytical tool called Fishbone diagram, also known as Ishikawa diagram, to the Global Warming effect. As seen in the picture below, the average temperatures in the earth have been constantly raising in the last century.
It is known, that one of the main causes for the temperature rise in the earth, is the greenhouse effect. One cause is the concentration of the CO2 gas in the atmosphere, that has been constantly increaed since measures exist as shown in the picture below.
The CO2 concentration is not the only cause for the global warming effect and on the other hand, the resons behind the CO2 increase have to be explored. The following Ishikawa diagram can be usefull to determine the root main causes for the global warming effect.
The Ishikawa diagram is a kind of cause-affect diagram which is useful to search for root causes of problems.
Our diagram has five large bones which represents the main causes for the Global Warming effect. Off each of the large bones, there are smaller bones highlighting more specific aspects of every main cause. In example, for the Population main bone, we have the following specific aspects:
- Methane produced by cattle raising
- Green House production (apart from CO2)
- Transportation (Cars, Flights... etc)
- Power Demand for Heating, lights...etc
A lot of poka-yokes (Slack et al, pg 469) can be developed to reduce the global warming effect, in example a message in the low efficiency light bulbs telling the buyer, that the use of more efficient bulbs helps to reduce the global warming.
References:
Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ishikawa_diagram
Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
Study Notes lesson 10
Slack, N.; Chambers, S.; Johnston, R. and Betts, A. (2006) Operations and Process Management, London: FT Prentice Hall
Desmond Yarham
Sergio,
An interesting assignment covering a very topical subject. It was good to see the Ishikara diagram applied to such a general problem. Well done, all 10 assignments completed.
rgds
Des
28 Oct 2007, 12:49
Add a comment
You are not allowed to comment on this entry as it has restricted commenting permissions.