Process Improvement with Solitaire

Using the PC Solitaire game to learn basic (and advanced) techniques of

Process Improvement

(So easy, even a can do it)

Presented by: Mark Berron, CQE, CSQE, 6ơ BB

Contact: mberron@arinc.com

Benefits of using Solitaire

• It gives the user a hands-on experience of creating and using data.

• The processes are simple

• The processes can be improved

• The process improvement can be measured.

• Even Six Sigma techniques can be learned

• It’s easy!!!

What we’ll do today…• What are the Solitaire Requirements??• Process mapping• Play Solitaire • Brainstorming on Improvements• Play more Solitaire• Measure the improvements• Translating this to your work processes• What this can mean to your bottom line…• For further information…

Requirements

• Objective is to get highest score (No time limits). Technically this is putting all cards into the Upper Deck by their respective suits.

• Basic process is: New cards go to Upper Deck. If can’t be played there, they are played on Lower Deck in alternative colors in descending order. If they can’t be played on the Lower Deck, then a new Card is chosen.

• The lowest Card in a Column in the lower Deck must be moved to the Upper Deck if possible and before choosing a New Card. When a column in the Lower Deck becomes empty, only a King can be moved there.

• Every card from the Lower Deck must be played until all options exhausted. Then a New Card is chosen.• When there are no more cards in the Playing Deck, or if all cards are in the Upper Deck, the game is over.

Lower Deck (LD)

Upper Deck (UD)Playing Deck (PD)

Definitions:

Rules (Defined)

New Card

Columns

Process Map

Choose New Card

Put in LD

Put in UDMove it to Upper Deck?

Play Rest of LD to UD

Y

N

Move it to Lower Deck?

Y

N

Any cards left?

Y

N

End Game

Record score

• What is a process map? ISO?• Here’s the process map for Solitaire:

Open game

Now, let’s play

• Use standard type of play

• Las Vegas Scoring

• No timing

• One card at a time

• Don’t think, just do.

• And observe. Maybe take notes.

Value Stream MappingBased on what you have seen, what does each step contribute to the

process? Let’s make a Value Stream Map (VSM) from the previous Process Map…

Choose New Card

Put in LD

Put in UDMove it to Upper Deck?

Play Rest of LD to UD

Y

N

Move it to Lower Deck?

Y

N

10

5

10

Any cards left?

Y

N

End Game

Record score

Open game

Brainstorming• Based on what you have seen, what are

possible improvements??Here are some ideas I have: • Do another pass?• Instead of moving new cards directly to

Upper Deck, first move them to Lower Deck.

• Let cards move from column to column• Let cards go from upper to lower deck• Don’t play out all cards before New Card

Which ideas do we try?

• What is potential of each improvement?

• How is it measured?

• How much does it cost?

Improvement potentialFirst, what’s the baseline?:

The one pass.

I chose four improvements:

1. Second pass

2. Let new cards go down to columns before going to upper deck

3. Allow cards to be moved to any column on bottom deck

4. Allow cards to be returned to columns from top finished deck.

VSM 1st improvementAdd the second pass to the process…

Choose New Card

Put in LD

Put in UDMove it to Upper Deck?

Play Rest of LD to UD

Y

N

Move it to Lower Deck?

Y

N

10

5

10

Any cards left?

Y

N

End Game

Record score

Open game

-100

Click on PD?

Y

N

Measuring the improvements

Basically, two ways to measure:1. Play out each improvement over a

number of rounds.2. Play out all improvements over a known

design (DOE).

The 2nd choice saves time and money, but is it accurate? Will it tell you which improvement is really best?

The long way…

• Here are the results of going through each improvement 100 times, with each adding on to the next. Thus number 2, has both 1 and 2 improvements included.

• For every improvement, scores were recorded for both one pass and two passes.

Some data…..

Some typical data gathering…

Some basic charts

• Trend lines– Mean– Standard deviation – Number of wins – Average winning score

Tracking the mean… Trend Chart

Means over 4 experiments

37

60

65

73

150

170

190

210

230

250

270

1 2 3 4

Experiment

Sco

re

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Mea

n d

iffe

ren

ce

Mean 1

Mean 2

Mean diff

Mean 1 = One passMean 2 = Two

Standard Deviation and Means

2nd pass higher Scores and Means

Number of high scores actually goes down, but average is higher. Why?

2nd pass winning scores vs. mean

What does it mean???Means over 4 experiments

37

60

65

73

150

170

190

210

230

250

270

1 2 3 4

Experiment

Scor

e

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Mea

n di

ffere

nce

Mean 1

Mean 2

Mean diff

Mean 1 = One passMean 2 = Two

The summary data is:

The 1st improvement appears to be the most significant The 2nd improvement appears to be the 2nd most significantThe 4th improvement appears to be the significant on the first passThe second pass increases improvements except in 4th caseMean 1 Factors show some effects of interaction.

What about DOE??

Results across the variables

Pareto Chart of DOE

-150

-100

-50

0

50

100

150

200

250

Series1

Comparing DOE to actuals• Both show A as the best option.• Actuals show B as 2nd best while 3rd in

DOE.• Actuals show C as a small or negative

influence, while it ranks only 6th in DOE.• Actuals show D with a medium influence,

while DOE shows it as fourth. • DOE shows a big BC interaction, but the

actuals show none or negative.

More basic analysis

What else can be learned?

• Cost/Benefit: Compute cost of the improvement by assessing the added time. How does the cost compare to added score over time?

• Risk: Assess the risk of taking on an improvement. The 2nd pass creates a lot more volatility. Is it worth it??

• What is the probability of success on the 2nd pass? How would you figure that out?

Compare to the real world…• What process do you have at work that

would benefit from process improvement.• What process needs a VSM?• Why not use ISO process as the baseline

for process improvement? Or CMMI?• Brainstorm for improvements.• Find out which has the most weight… the

low hanging fruit. How much will it cost?• Then do it!!!!

What other techniques can be learned from Solitaire?

• ANOVA• X-Bar and R charts• Probability • Ishikawa (Cause and effect diagrams)• Taguchi, Latin Square, partial factorial

designs• 5S (Clean up the process)• And more….

Xbar-R Chart

X-bar R Chart

Further information

• I am in the process of creating a training manual along with an Excel-based data collection/analysis program. It should be complete by end of August 2007. If you might be interested in a follow up session or the materials themselves, please let me know and I will forward a version to you. My email address is: mberron@arinc.com