Check sheet maker

A form for recording, as they happen, how many times each type of defect (or event) occurs, with one tally mark per occurrence. Because it is organized by item and by day, shift or hour from the start, the totals are ready for a Pareto chart without retyping.

Define the purpose (which problem you want to understand), list the items to count with clear names and an “Other” at the end, choose the columns (days, shifts or hours) and the period, and agree with whoever will fill it in on how to recognize each defect. Here you set it all up on the left and print it on A4 or fill it in on your phone.

The most common are: defect count (items × period), location (a drawing of the part where the spot of the defect is marked) and distribution (measurement bands that form a histogram as you measure). There are also task checklists, which are a different tool.

Make one vertical stroke per occurrence; the fifth stroke crosses the previous four diagonally. Each group is worth 5, so the final count is quick. On screen, each tap on a cell adds a stroke; use −1 mode to correct.

Yes. Open the page on your phone, tap the cell for each occurrence, and the sheet is saved in the browser itself. The “Copy sheet link” button creates a link with the counts, to send to your supervisor or carry on on another device.

Use “Make a Pareto chart from the totals”: it opens the Pareto chart already filled in. With columns by shift or day, “Pareto stratified by the columns” shows one Pareto per column. On a distribution sheet, “Make a histogram” takes the classes and counts.

Long enough to cover the process’s normal variation: at least a week with every shift, or about 30 to 50 occurrences, so the order of the items does not change by chance. For a histogram, gather at least 50 measurements.