Key Define Tools For Service Applications

The tools used in Define Step help in confirming or refining project scope and boundaries. Two common tools are:

SIPOC Diagrams
Multigenerational Plans

SIPOC diagrams

A core principle of Lean Six Sigma is that defects can relate to anything that makes a customer unhappy long lead time, variation in lead time, poor quality, or high cost, for instance. To address any of these problems, the first step is to take a process view of how your company goes about satisfying a particular customer requirement. Because many organizations still operate as functional silos and the fact that no one person owns the entire process, just steps in the process-it's likely that few if any people will have looked at the process from start to finish.

The tool for creating a high-level map of process is called SIPOC, which stands for:

Suppliers: The entities (person, process, company) that provides whatever is worked on in the process (information, forms, material). The supplier may be an outside vendor or another division or a coworker (as an internal supplier).
Input: The information or material provided.
Process: the steps used to transfer (both those that add value and those that do not add value).
Output: the product, service or information being sent to the customer (preferably emphasizing Critical-to-Quality features).
Customers: the next step in the process, or the final (external) customers.

A SIPOC diagram usually takes shape during the Define stage of DMAIC, but its impact is felt throughout the rest of the improvement project as well. The team will be measuring the lead times and quality levels wherever the process fails to meet Critical-to-Quality (CTQ) requirements of the customer. In the Analysis phase, the team will be relating each CTQ and each Time Trap (the output, or Y, in Six Sigma parlance) to a few process parameters (the Xs) whose change will improve that CTQ or Time Trap. In Improve, the team makes changes to the inputs and process steps that affect the critical output; these improvements are then the target of Control measures to make sure the gains are retained.

Multigenerational plans

There are many reasons why you may want to look at defining different generations of improvement for the service or process being studied. You have to first bring your current process under control before you can aim for best-in-class performance levels. So an early project may be "bring the process under control," followed by a second project to "raise the performance level."

Similarly, if there are a lot of customer requirements you're trying to meet, you may divide them into groups to be attacked sequentially (e.g., first do a project to fill gaps in the minimum requirements your service/product has to meet, then do a second phase to improve additional features. A third factor is simply practicality: how much improvement you can reasonably hope to achieve within the timeframe of any single project.

A multigenerational plan helps capture this notion by setting out the current goals plus targets for future generations of the product or service. Having such a plan facilitates dialogue between the team and the leadership on which objectives are most important for the current project, and lets them be clear about the boundaries of the current project.