The ISHIKAWA Procedure

Balancing Arrows

An Ishikawa diagram is said to be balanced if the sub-arrows attached to each arrow are equally spaced.

To balance the immediate descendants of an arrow and all its descendants, proceed as follows:

Move the cursor over the arrow head.
Activate the popup menu using the right mouse button.
Select Balance.

To balance only the immediate descendants of an arrow, select Balance from the popup menu for the arrow tail.

You can restore the arrows to their original positions by doing the following:

Activate the background popup menu using the right mouse button.
Select Unbalance.

The ISHIKAWA environment provides three alternative methods for balancing arrows. Select one of the following choices from the View → Ishikawa Setting → Balance Method →menu:

Preserve order/sides maintains the order and directions of the sub-arrows but repositions them so they are evenly spaced.
Preserve order/alternate sides maintains the ordering of the arrows but repositions adjacent arrows so that they appear on opposite sides. This is the default.
Preserve sides maintains the side on which the sub-arrows are attached then spaces each side of the arrow independently.

Example

Consider the following unbalanced diagram:

Figure 8.35: An Unbalanced Ishikawa Diagram

To balance only the stems of the branch labeled Branch A, move the cursor over the arrow head and press the right mouse button.

Figure 8.36: Balancing a Branch

Select Balance from the arrow head popup menu.

Figure 8.37: A Balanced Branch

Note that since the stems are without leaves, selecting either the head or the tail has the same result.

To balance only the five major branches in the preceding diagram without affecting their stems, move the cursor to the tail end of the trunk and select Balance from the popup menu.

Figure 8.38: Balancing Only the Branches

To balance the entire diagram (from head to tail, so to speak), move the cursor to the head of the trunk and select Balance from the popup menu.

Figure 8.39: Balancing the Entire Diagram

Note that the balancing method used here not only changes the spacing of the stems but reflects them as needed to achieve a balanced appearance. You can control this by specifying a balancing method, as illustrated by the next example.

Example

The following diagram displays an unbalanced branch and a copy of that branch after it was balanced using the Preserve order/alternate sides balancing method:

Figure 8.40: Preserving Order But Alternating Sides

Note that the stems remain in order (1-8) from tail to head, but they now alternate evenly across both sides of the branch. This is the default method used for balancing arrows.

Example

The following diagram displays an unbalanced branch and a copy of that branch after it was balanced using the Preserve order/sides method:

Figure 8.41: Preserving Order and Sides

Note that stems 4-6 remain on the left, stems 1-3 and 7-8 remain on the right, and the order from tail to head is still 1-8. However, the stems are now spaced uniformly.

Example

The following diagram displays an unbalanced branch and a copy of that branch after it was balanced using the Preserve sides balancing method:

Figure 8.42: Preserving Sides

Note that the stems on the left (4-6) are spaced uniformly, and the stems on the right (1-3 and 7-8) are spaced uniformly. The two sides are spaced independently of each other.