The great demand and demands of the consumer regarding flexibility, quality, speed and low prices, as well as the competition that increases considerably every day, have motivated large and small companies and organizations, as well as the people involved, to develop strategies, finding the necessary resources to implement them and be able to achieve their own objectives. one
“Strategy planning is a process of systematic evaluation of the nature of a business and its long-term objectives; identifying quantitative goals and objectives, developing strategies to achieve those objectives and locating resources to carry out those strategies ”(Martha C. Lafaurie. 2003). Strategic planning is of great help in adapting new and changing companies, with which managers can design the future, the image and the objectives for it. In this process, opportunities, competitive advantages, risks and current weaknesses of the company are detected. Subsequently, a document is prepared containing the lines of action that will allow the company to consolidate a position in its development environment.The best known and used for its simplicity and practicality is the SWOT analysis or SWOT matrix.1, 4
What is SWOT analysis?
SWOT analysis is also known as SWOT matrix. It is a diagnostic tool for internal and external situations of a company or organization, which is very useful for its practicality and simplicity for making tactical and strategic decisions in the future. Four. Five
What does the acronym SWOT stand for?
The acronym SWOT, SWOT, FADO, SWOT (in English), is made up of four concepts: strength, opportunities, weaknesses and threats, whose objective is to identify and analyze the internal situations (strengths and weaknesses) and external (opportunities and threats) of organizations or companies, this in order to make good decisions and chart a good future for them. 3. 4
- Strengths or strengths are competitive advantages such as the capacities, resources and positions achieved, which should and can serve to exploit opportunities. Weaknesses or weaknesses are a threat to the organization, as they limit or reduce the capacity for effective development of the company's strategy, and must be controlled and overcome. Threats are all forces outside the organization, which can prevent the implementation and organization of a strategy, reducing its effectiveness, or increasing its risks., They are everything that represents a possibility to improve the profitability of the organization, and that can be a competitive advantage for it. 2.3
Criteria for the application and organization of the SWOT format
"The criteria for locating a data or fact in one of these four categories are basically two: if they are internal or external to the organization and if they are convenient or inconvenient for the organization" (Jessie M. Orlich. 2014)
The strengths and weaknesses are the internal part of the company and at the time of analyzing the resources and capabilities of the company, a great diversity of factors must be considered regarding aspects of: 2.3
- ProductionMarketingFunding
Threats and opportunities are elements external to the organization or company, which it cannot control or modify but can overcome, manage and / or take advantage of, anticipating them. Here comes into play the flexibility and dynamism of the company or organization. 2.3
It is easy to derive that opportunities and strengths are convenient factors for the organization and weaknesses and threats are inconveniences.
Using the format for SWOT analysis
Below is the format for the SWOT analysis (table 1) and an example of its application (table 2).
Table 1. Format for SWOT analysis.
Table obtained from: SWOT Analysis, Secretary of Health. (2014)
Table 2. Example of the application of the SWOT format.
| Analysis | Positive (convenient) | Negative (inconvenient) |
| Internal | Forces | Weaknesses |
| • Openness to change by staff.
• Good location of "Clinic". • Good perception of the quality of the services received. |
• The staff is unmotivated.
• The building is small. • High bureaucracy and excess paperwork. • Cultural differences with users |
|
| External | Opportunities | Threats |
| • Support from local government.
• High need identified by users. • Little competition. • There are projects financed with international resources. |
• Low user income Roads in poor condition.
• Low wages. • Lack of budget. • Provider paradigms. |
Table obtained and modified from: SWOT Analysis, Secretary of Health. (2014) Conclusion
Nowadays and forever, competitiveness is one of the main challenges for small, medium and large companies, since not only do they face local organizations, but competition occurs between companies from all over the world. one
In order to become increasingly competitive, these organizations resort to various tools that allow them to lower their costs, increase the quality of their products and obtain better results in the face of the demand for quality and economy of the public to which they are directed. Therefore, it is not surprising that they seek effective and simple, as well as economic, methods to ensure that their strategies give good results and, in the long run, be able to fully meet the objectives set by them. one
According to what was previously stated, the SWOT analysis is a very effective tool for the fulfillment of these purposes, and it is for this reason, apart from its simplicity, practicality and economy, that organizations and companies use it to comply with their objectives optimally and safely, for them and for those who are targeted. 1, 2, 3
AFFINITY DIAGRAM
Introduction
"A project is a plan to organize in a specific way the use of a certain amount of resources in order to achieve certain results in a defined period of time." (FAO Fisheries Department 2014)
Any argument, text, fact, opinion, etc. with information on some specific area, it has an external structure, as well as an internal structure, which are related to the disposition of ideas. Analyzing the internal structure of a text lies in establishing the parts, as well as highlighting the main ideas that make it up, pointing out the relationship established between them. This is called "organizing the ideas of a text." 1, 2
The organization results from planning, through which, from the establishment of objectives, the functions, activities and work to be carried out in order to achieve them are identified, and the resources, materials and human resources necessary to carry them out are also available. 2 "Organizing is the deliberate attempt to adapt to achieve ends." (The great encyclopedia of economics. 2009).
What is the affinity diagram?
The affinity diagram also known as the KJ method; by Dr. Kawakita Jiro, creator of this organization tool; it is a creative method of organizing ideas. It is designed to gather, synthesize, order and group facts, opinions, themes, expressions, ideas, etc. that are related to each other in a common or natural way. 3, 4, 5 "This method is usually used by a team to organize a large amount of data according to the natural relationships between them." (Alejandro Floría. 2000).
Basically, it is a group work that consists of brainstorming and writing the concepts resulting from it about a specific topic in a Post It note (stickers) and placing them, or positioning them on a wall, table or established area. Subsequently, team members move and organize the notes in groups based on the relationships and associations they establish between the different concepts.
Advantages and benefits of the affinity diagram
The advantage of making an affinity diagram is that it promotes the creativity of the whole team, breaking down communication barriers and creating unusual connections between ideas and issues, as well as promoting the "appropriation" of the results, because the team creates the detailed introduction of contributions and the general results. 3 Affinity diagrams are useful because they address a problem directly, organizing large amounts of data. Therefore, it is recommended in those cases in which the topic on which you want to work is complex or confusing and where the participation of a group of people is required. 3, 5
Steps to develop an affinity diagram
- Select the correct team
The boss or responsible person is the one who must choose the people who will have to intervene in the process, generally, the teams are from four to eight people. For this, it is important to take into account the attitudes and capacities of the people who go to
to consider. 3. 4
- Establish the problem
The group or team must establish the problem they wish to address, or the leader is the one who has already established it. 3. 4
- Generate the main ideas or data
The information can be generated as a group by brainstorming while writing down on small pieces of paper, or individually, where each member will write their ideas in points on small pieces of paper. Ideas or concepts should be written on a single piece of paper. 4
- Gather the information gathered by the team
Subsequently, the information obtained, written on the pieces of paper, is collected and later dispersed in such a way that they can be seen by all the team members, whether on a table, posted on a wall or in any open area. 3, 4 Organize and group concepts
The pieces of paper should be read and the team members should group them in an orderly manner, according to the relationships that the concepts or ideas have with each other, and they should also write the concept or relationship as the subject of the group. 3, 4 For example:
From the following list, order the concepts according to their relationship.
| Animals | Vegetables | Objects |
| Dog | Lettuce | rock |
| Cat | Dad | Table |
| Horse | Sweet potato | Chair |
| Donkey | Spinach | Armchair |
| Dolphin | Beans | Sofa |
| Whale | Lentils | window |
The relationship topics for the words are: animals, vegetables and objects.
Subsequently, depending on how deep the problem is, subgroups can be made to classify. For example:
| Animals | Vegetables | Objects | |||||
| Terrestrial | Marine | Green leaves | Tuber | Legume
s |
Dinning room | Room | External
r |
| Dog | Dolphin | Lettuce | Dad | Beans | Table | armchair | rock |
| Cat | Whale | Spinach | Sweet potato | lentils | Chair | sofa | Sand |
| Horse | |||||||
| Donkey |
- Draw the finished affinity diagram
Once the concepts have been organized and grouped, they should be shown in a hierarchical manner, where the analysis of the problem is shown, identifying areas and subareas according to their relationships. 3. 4
- Review and validation of the finished diagram
Finally, the group or team should discuss the relationship of the groups and their corresponding elements with the problem, so that the concepts or ideas are found accordingly, and otherwise seek and reach unanimous agreement.
Example of the final structure of an affinity diagram.
SOURCE: Image taken from the National Center for Epidemiological Surveillance and Disease Control, Directorate for Microbacteriosis. 2014
conclusion
There are times when problems arise that are difficult to solve, either because there is disorganization or they are often just confusing. However, everything has an order, as well as relationships between each other, and the joke is to find a way to identify them, for this reason it is important to use methods that help us find, analyze and organize the main points or ideas.
In this case, the affinity diagram is a very useful, creative and effective tool for organizing ideas, in addition to being a group work, which exposes the point of view of more than one person and helps to broaden the vision and perspective. of all the participants. Thanks to this, the analysis and organization of the ideas of the initially raised problem can take a course that helps to solve it.
PARETO CHART
Introduction
The typical characteristics and particularities of something are highlighted from the concept of quality, if we refer to a product. The quality aims to achieve a differentiation of qualitative and quantitative level in relation to the required nature. As for the user, quality implies satisfying their expectations, desires, tastes and desires. In other words, the quality of an object or service depends on the way in which it manages to meet the needs of the client or user. For these reasons, large companies, their purpose is always, or should be to find strategic methods to improve the quality of their products or services, however, for this it is necessary to use tools that, in addition to being simple to apply, are effective. and economic.
"In practice, quality is a discipline that is studied through statistical tools designed to evaluate data, obtain information, form judgments and make decisions in conditions of uncertainty, about products and processes." (9)
In a process there can be different problems and each one can have different causes. Since resources are generally scarce, it is impossible to dedicate them to solving all of them, rather they should be applied in order of importance: the best resources for the most significant problems.
To select that set of problems or to solve the majority causes of the same problem, an analysis must be done, this using a tool known as the Pareto Diagram (PD). (9)
PRINCIPLE OF PARETO
How originated?
Nowadays, and a phenomenon has always been observed, which was discovered by Wilfredo Pareto, Italian economist (1848-1923), who carried out very complete studies on the distribution of wealth in Europe and determined that between 80 and 85 % of the wealth of the city of Milan Italy was in the hands of 15 to 20% of its inhabitants, however, it was Dr. Joseph Juran who, using the same concept in the 1950s, pointed out that most of the problems of quality had their origin in the minority
of causes, he realized that this phenomenon was universal and applicable Wilfredo Pareto to various types of problems, in which most of the results are due to the minority of causes and various types of problems, such as: quality, costs, efficiency, ecology, security, energy, etc. It was he who gave name to this phenomenon, which is Joseph Juran known as Pareto Principle. (9.10)
“Today, the expression 80-20 has been generalized to indicate this principle, which means, in general, that 80% of a phenomenon is due to 20% of the causes, that is, a few causes produce the majority of the results". What is it?
The Pareto principle (known as the 80/20 rule) states that, “Although an effect is produced by several causes, a significant part of the effect (80%) is usually explained by a few causes (20%)”.
The 80-20 percentages are not exact, rather they are an approximation depending on the phenomenon under study, whose purpose is to show the causes that most contribute to explaining it. (6) The main idea is to locate the few major defects, problems, or flaws to focus efforts on solving or improving them. (8)
PARETO CHART
What is it?
The Pareto chart is also known as the “ABC Diagram” or “Diagram 20-80”. It is a powerful tool for quality improvement, helps detect and evaluate problems, as well as apply and analyze improvements made in the process. (10) The Pareto diagram is a bar graph in vertical columns, where each represents a different category or fraction of the problem. To understand it, one must start by dividing the issue or problem into parts or components and then place them in an orderly manner according to their importance (descending, from left to right). (9)
"The objective of this tool is to classify these causes or problems into two categories: The Few Vitals (very important elements in their contribution) and the Many Trivial (unimportant elements in it)".
Thanks to the Pareto diagrams it is easier to detect the problems with more relevance, where generally, 80% of the total results originate from 20% of the elements. (10) Its foundation starts from considering that a small percentage of the causes, 20%, produce the majority of the effects, 80%. It would therefore be a matter of identifying that small percentage of “vital” causes to act as a priority on it.
"This tool is used to understand which causes of a problem seem to be having the most impact on the problem."
Advantages and disadvantages
Listed below are a number of features that help you understand the nature of the Pareto chart.
- Prioritization: Helps to identify the elements that are most important within a group. Unification of Criteria: Focus and direct the effort of the components of the work group unifying them towards a common priority objective. Objective character: Its use forces the work group to Decision making based on objective data and facts and not on subjective ideas. (1) Simplicity: The Pareto Diagram does not require complex calculations or sophisticated graphical representation techniques. Visual Impact: The Diagram expresses clearly, clearly and simply, the result of the comparison and prioritization analysis. (1, 10)
The simple inspection of the diagram, before and after having acted, indicates the effectiveness of those responsible and the importance of the resources used. (8)
When developing the Pareto diagram, it can be seen that sometimes it does not allow a clear distinction to be made between the different elements or categories that contribute to the effect in question, this for different reasons, for example:
- All bars in the Diagram are more or less the same height. More than half of the categories are needed to account for more than 60% of the total effect. (3) Often the Pareto chart is only applied to identify a major problem and not to locate its root cause. „(3) In general, the decision made about the cause to attack after defining the problem considered most important (the highest bar), can sometimes lead to errors. (7)
In these cases, it seems that the Pareto Principle is not applicable to the case study. This circumstance is highly unlikely, since this principle has proven its validity in thousands of cases. In general, these circumstances are due to a poor choice of the elements or categories used for the analysis. (1) Structure
Classifying by categories the horizontal axis can encompass different types of variables, for example: type of defects, work group, product, size, etc. „(8)
The left vertical axis should represent units of measurement that give a clear idea of the importance of each
category, for example: No. of rejected articles, man-hours, machine-hours, etc. (8) The right vertical axis must represent a scale in percentages from 0 to 100%, so that based on this, the importance of each category with respect to the others. „(7)
The cumulative line represents the cumulative percentages of the categories. (7)
Types of Pareto diagram
- Phenomena diagrams. Used to determine the main problem that causes an undesired result, they can be of quality, cost, delivery, safety or others. Cause diagrams. Once they have found the important problems, employees can discover the most relevant causes that produce them. (3)
APPLICATIONS
This Analysis is applicable in any case where priorities must be established so as not to disperse efforts and optimize results, particularly:
- In the prioritization of problems during the definition and selection of projects. In the identification of the key causes of a problem. To check the results of a work group after the implementation of the solution proposed by it.
The Pareto diagram is especially useful when it comes to: a) Showing the relative importance of the different causes identified for a given effect or problem, this in those cases in which this is the result of the contribution of various causes or factors. b) Determine the key factors (the most important) that include a certain effect or problem. c) Decide on which aspects (“vital few”) should be worked on immediately. (two)
STEPS TO PERFORM A PARETO DIAGRAM
The construction of a Pareto diagram is simple, however laborious, for this it is necessary to carry out the following steps:
- First, you must define what method will be used to classify the data: by problem, by cause, by type of rejection, etc. Define the scale or graduation of the characteristics to be used, this can be weights, tons, units etc. It is necessary to collect the data corresponding to a certain period. Synthesize the data and arrange the categories, from the largest to the smallest. If the cumulative percentage is used, it must be calculated. Construct the diagram and determine the vital minority. For this you must perform: (10)
- The variables of interest will be selected for the category or horizontal axis of the diagram. These can be: work teams, types of defects, people, machines, work methods, customers, suppliers, or any significant variable for the process. Variables of lower category can be grouped into a single denomination "others", but it must be ensured that their relative percentage is not greater than any specific category. Subsequently, the left vertical axis is marked with units appropriate to the horizontal category; that is, if we are talking about defects originating from a raw material purchased from different suppliers, these will occupy the horizontal axis and the quantities purchased in pesos or kilograms will be noted on the left vertical axis. The scale is intended to be a multiple of ten,This is so that the horizontal lines are useful for both scales. The right vertical axis is marked with a scale from 0 to 100% in the same length as the left scale. A bar of the size of your dimension is placed over the category correspondent. The dimension in units is read to the left and its percentage weight is read to the right. Subsequently, the other bars are placed in descending order.Finally, a line representing the percentage of the second category is drawn from the axis of the first bar to its axis. These are the accumulated lines and each one begins where the previous one ends. (9)A bar of the size of your dimension is placed over the corresponding category. The dimension in units is read to the left and its percentage weight is read to the right. Subsequently, the other bars are placed in descending order.Finally, a line representing the percentage of the second category is drawn from the axis of the first bar to its axis. These are the accumulated lines and each one begins where the previous one ends. (9)A bar of the size of your dimension is placed over the corresponding category. The dimension in units is read to the left and its percentage weight is read to the right. Subsequently, the other bars are placed in descending order.Finally, a line representing the percentage of the second category is drawn from the axis of the first bar to its axis. These are the accumulated lines and each one begins where the previous one ends. (9)These are the accumulated lines and each one begins where the previous one ends. (9)These are the accumulated lines and each one begins where the previous one ends. (9)
"In a relatively simple way, the different elements involved in a failure appear and the really relevant problems can be identified, which lead to the highest percentage of errors."
conclusion
Although companies seek to highlight their products and services, quality is always the first thing they want to improve, however, if there were no tools to help us in this process, quality simply would not exist, as the advancement and improvement of new trends, as well as the emergence of new and better skills, has greatly motivated the evolution and creation of those that, in addition to being effective and simple, are economical to apply.
The Pareto diagram is, as we were able to visualize, an effective tool, as well as a relatively simple one, which is used to organize those failures, concepts or factors that cause the problem that prevents the improvement of the quality of any service or product. As Wilfredo Pareto said well “between 80 and 85% of the wealth of the city of Milan, Italy is in the hands of 15 to 20% of its inhabitants”, which is a principle applicable to different fields. Because sometimes the failures of a product are a minority, but nevertheless they affect the rest that are the majority, and for this reason it is important to correct them. Or, the advantages are in a minority, which are usually more outstanding than the errors that are the majority, and for this it is necessary to correct the errors and increase the advantages.
It is probably somewhat confusing and complex to understand at the forefront, however, once developed, it is quite a useful tool.
REFERENCES
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