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For any process or department we must know and highlight abnormal conditions which needs to to eliminated. And to recognize abnormal, it is must to understand what normal is. Nominal condition defines standard of process on which it s operating within acceptable limits. It is a very important concept and we have to understand better what nominal condition is. The first thing to define Nominal condition is to establish acceptance limits. For example, we know that parts are producing from different tools which have different rate of production or has different SPM(Strokes per minute), A part of high SPM of 12 will be produced 720 units in one hour on the other hand a part of low SPM of 8 will be produced 480 units only in one hour. SO we should define limit because at the end of that day we are knowing that we will achieve our target . other example for the same is rules change by government in Engines from BS4 to BS 6 before it was BS 3, every time they are giving some acceptable limits for emission control so that companies do modification accordingly and set their target and range accordingly during production. The second important key to define nominal condition is to be able to measure it in process metric. For example machine has a capacity to produce 4000 parts in eight hour and so every hour it should finish 500 parts, so if you are knowing that at particular time you are supposed to finish 2000 parts but you are behind that target it means you are out of your Nominal condition. One should be able ot measure the condition real time e.g. at the mid hour mark - what is the count which gives you the opportunity for correction. It is hard to correct when the measurement cannot be real time (or with lagging measurement) The most common challenge is to maintain it for a long time. Mostly people think that it is one time activity and left after achieving it, but actually it is day to day activity and there are chances of continuous improvement. Like Toyota has implemented it long time back but still they are continuously working on it to improve it further and to maintain it further. Mostly people think that this can be used in manufacturing facility only but it can be used in any department of the company. There may, however be a lot of resistance to such a change.