Overview

I thought that perhaps an explanation of soft-sensors and a rationale to construction or understanding as to how ‘I’ would use the … Lens.. for want of a better expression. Therefore some definitions of Soft-sensors:

Soft-Sensors

“….Soft sensors are inferential estimators, drawing conclusions from process observations when hardware sensors are unavailable or unsuitable; they have an important auxiliary role in sensor validation when performance declines through senescence or fault accumulation…”

Soft Sensors for Monitoring and Control of Industrial Processes
Authors: Fortuna, L., Graziani, S., Rizzo, A., Xibilia, M.G

“….Soft-Sensor provides estimates of process variables of interest in situation where those variables cannot be measured at all or frequently enough using classical instrumentation due to economical or technological limitations, like lack of space, harsh environmental conditions, extreme operational conditions…..

…Models used in Soft-Sensors represent the knowledge of the system that is exploited to improve the quality of measurements. The models complexity needed varies depending on the goals of the Soft-Sensor development and the complexity of the system, ranging from none to thousands of dynamic variables…

….The models may be based on: 1) the knowledge of the physical processes governing the behaviour of the process variables of interest – so called first principles models or white-box models, or 2) identified from the system’s operational data with little insight into the system structure – so called black-box models, or 3) mixed grey-box models merging the two previous approaches…”

Soft-sensor Measurement and Estimation Technology

I think that this should be left with some ambiguity, for the sake of creative use. However, the outline is that a set of failure data will infer a common cause.

Perhaps, it would be worth considering that the history of intelligence [e.g. Spearman, Thompson, and Binet] charts a movement of diagnosis of facets of intelligence, diagnosis for improvement, and shift to measurement to stratify society.

Subjective Truth to Gemba

The notion of Subjective Truth alone won’t be considered relevant due to being opinions, beliefs and/or bias. However, the most striking method would be where an individual has been differentiated against by the System and to be later found to have been unduly Judged by the System. At which point their Subjective Truth becomes highly pertinent, and Their experience, I would suggest, equivalent to Gemba.

“…Gemba (現場, also spelt less commonly as genba) is a japanese term meaning “the real place.” Japanese police could refer to a crime scene as gemba, and TV reporters often refer to themselves as reporting live from gemba. 
In business, however, gemba refers to the place where value is created. The most common use of the term is in manufacturing, where the gemba is the factory floor. Beyond this, gemba can really be any “site”, such as a building site in construction, the sales floor in retail, or somewhere the service provider interacts directly with the customer e.g. a car dealership showroom….

…In lean manufacturing, the whole point of gemba is that problems in a business process or production line are often easily visible, and the best improvement come from going to ‘the real place’, where leaders can see the state of the process for themselves….

…Over the course of a Gemba Walk, leaders, managers and supervisors are expected to simply observe and understand process. As part of the Kaizen methodology, it is also supposed to encourage greater communication, transparency and trust between the lower-level of employees and leadership. For this reason, it is not appropriate to use a Gemba walk to point out employee flaws, or enforce policy – this runs the risk of employees putting up barriers to leadership, or closing off altogether…”

What is Gemba: Definitions and tools – Business Transformation & Operational Excellence

Relative Truth to Triangulation

“…In the social sciences, triangulation refers to the application and combination of several research methods in the study of the same phenomenon.^[1] By combining multiple observers, theories, methods, and empirical materials, researchers hope to overcome the weakness or intrinsic biases and the problems that come from single method, single-observer and single-theory studies….
In particular:
– It can be used in both quantitative (validation) and qualitative (inquiry) studies.
– It is a method-appropriate strategy of founding the credibility of qualitative analyses.
– It becomes an alternative to traditional criteria like reliability and validity.
– It is the preferred line in the social sciences.

The purpose of triangulation in qualitative research is to increase the credibility and validity of the results. Several scholars have aimed to define triangulation throughout the years.
Cohen and Manion (2000) define triangulation as an “attempt to map out, or explain more fully, the richness and complexity of human behavior by studying it from more than one standpoint.”^[3]
Altrichter et al. (2008) contend that triangulation “gives a more detailed and balanced picture of the situation.”^[4]
According to O’Donoghue and Punch (2003), triangulation is a “method of cross-checking data from multiple sources to search for regularities in the research data.”

Wikipedia – Triangulation [Social Science]

Effect -> Cause : Ishikawa diagrams

If you want to discover the root cause of a problem and need a structured method to guide a team through a problem solving process, then the cause and effect diagram is for you. The tool allows a team to identify, explore and display in increasing detail, all of the possible causes of a problem, to eventually flush out the root cause(s) of the problem.

The process to follow is basically the same, regardless of industry or problem. It’s best to gather a team of people who have the right skills, knowledge and experience of the problem to collectively identify all the reasons why the problem may be occurring.

If you can’t quantify your problem, consider collecting some data before you go any further. Remember, you’re aiming to separate fact from opinion and identify the root cause of the problem.

Lyndsay Swinton – Management for the Rest of Us

Limitations

I don’t quite know what to call the scope of this outline, but it should become apparent that it will be subject to a broader System.

Firstly, there are those that will have been banjaxed by dodgy process, and secondly there’s the information System, of which relates to Context. All that Soft-sensors achieve is to infer a root cause which will tend towards – process, and information systems, I suspect.

Perhaps the question is Intentionality?