Over time, you’ll gather more data, and statistics inevitably shift. However, because Cp and Cpk calculations are based on one random subset of a larger population, they aren’t great for estimating long-term success. The combination of Cp and Cpk give you a solid base for short-term Process Capability. These indices analyze variations within a single sample allowing practitioners to test processes-despite having limited data. If you can’t verify that a process meets the criteria, you can use process potential (Cp) and process performance (Cpk) to estimate whether a process is capable of meeting customer specifications in the short term. Process Capability can also be used as a predictive tool for estimating whether a process will deliver outputs that meet future requirements.Ĭalculating Process Capability makes three assumptions-normal distribution, a stable process, and a large sample size. Organizations can perform a Process Capability analysis and immediately understand whether an existing process effectively delivers the desired outcome-and to what extent-then use that information to drive improvements. Process capability = voice of the customer / voice of the process Process Capability is used to measure the relationship between the voice of the customer and the voice of the process: From there, you’ll be able to determine what needs to change in order to deliver an end product that aligns with user requirements.ĭuring a quality improvement project, a Process Capability analysis is typically done at the beginning of a study to establish a benchmark and again at the end to gauge the impact of any changes made to the process. Practitioners evaluate a process’s ability to deliver on customer expectations by measuring the inherent variation that exists within that process. Process Capability describes a set of statistical techniques used to predict the complete output of a process by analyzing data from a small, random sample.