5W2H
5W2H is acronym for the set of seven question What, Where, When, Which, Who, How and How-much. This technique was developed in Automobile industry as 5W1H to gather and report information in full. It is intensively used across industries to report non-conformances, quality incidents, safety incidents, accidents etc.
Off late we have added the 2nd ‘H’ How-much to quantify the risk associated with the condition being reported. In LSS, it is used to define a problem condition with full information in define phase and as Operational Definition in measure phase.
| Question | Expected Information | Importance |
| What? | What is the problem? | What happened? What has gone wrong against (what) expectations? |
| Where? | Where was the problem Observed? (Location) | Location of problem observation including process stage. This will also be useful for effective investigation. |
| When? | Date / Shift / Time of observation of problem | Date, shift and exact time of observation of problem. Time of incident will provide clues of delays in process. Delay could also be a cause of problem. We will lose this perspective if we fail to record exact time |
| Which? | In Which line / which product / which batch or lot number / which brand / which Record? | Exact point where the problem happened. Useful during analysis. Helps to isolate the problem. |
| Who? | Who has observed the problem? Name and designation. | Significance of him / her observing problem (somebody else should have observed?) He / She becomes documented witness for the incident. This will be useful to get first-hand information on problem, in future. |
| How? | How the problem was experienced / observed | Provides more critical information on problem on how the person found the problem. For example, during Performance monitoring / during regular check-up / sudden noise / abnormal smell etc. |
| How many? | How many batches rejected? How much material lost? How much time wasted? How much money / how many machines down | This captures the impact of the problem. This will help in determining urgency of remedial actions and to take decision on future course of action |