An Overview of the Shainin System™ for Quality Improvement

The Shainin System™ (SS) is the name given to a problem solving system, with its associated strategies and tools, developed by Dorian Shainin, and widely used and promoted in the manufacturing sector. Dorian Shainin also called this system Statistical Engineering, reflecting his engineering education and background. The consulting firm, Shainin LLC, offers the system under the trademarked name Red X® Strategy. Much of SS is neither well documented, nor adequately discussed in peer-reviewed journals. The goal of this article is to provide an overview of SS, a critical assessment, and a brief comparison with other industrial problem solving systems. The emphasis is on a discussion of the guiding philosophy and principles. Some specific SS tools are examined and compared with alternative methods. In our assessment, the Shainin System is valuable for many types of problems and many of its elements have been, or should be, incorporated into other process improvement methodologies. However, many of the statistical tools and methods promoted in conjunction with SS are neither novel nor necessarily the best.