SIX SIGMA 12 STEPS TO IMPROVE THE COMPANY WORKING
Step one To define your company’s business life cycle, start by answering the following questions:
What is the company’s vision and mission?
What are the company’s major processes or organizational flows?
What are the boundaries?
Who are the key value stakeholders?
How do key value stakeholders—i.e., the company, its suppliers and its customers—define value for the identified business life cycle?
What are the outcomes expected from the business and relationships with suppliers and customers?
Step two Customers’ and suppliers’ interactions occur at points all along the life cycle and thus are inseparable from the company processes noted in step one. If your analysis uncovers communication breakdowns that reduce value, add waste or reduce the passion for success, these should be clearly identified for intense analysis and scrutiny during subsequent steps.
Describe the relationship between each company department and its supplier or customer—is it cordial, collaborative, adversarial, nonexistent?
Describe the personalities of the people involved in the relationships. Are they proactive or reactive, responsive or procrastinating, talkers or listeners? Consider ways in which the relationships can be improved. At this point, it’s a good idea to evaluate how thorough you want the value stream map to be.
Assess other potential flows or shared services that might not be enterprisewide but run parallel to those already depicted. Enabling infrastructures such as information technology, e-business, human resources, accounting, and social/cultural customs should be included.
Finally, analyze external influences—societal, environmental, political—that might affect the map, as well as any destabilizing forces. These might include policies, laws, demographics or other trends.
Step three Assess and map the flow of products, programs, services, information, money and time based on the business life cycle defined in step one.
The resulting map and lists of influences represent the current state—or level one work breakdown—of the enterprise.
At this point, validate boundaries, values, company outcomes, vision and mission as identified in step one.
Adjust these as necessary to reflect current business realities.
Step four Take each portion of the current state and drill down a minimum of one layer to the details of constituent processes, flows, components or influences.
Assess the processes and document interfaces as well as the “softer” sides discussed in step two. This drilling down allows you to clearly see the interaction of the various flows, both technical and social, and to gather more specific data for analysis.
Step five Overlay all informational, social and technical components of the flow not already captured and mapped. Validate the connections, interrelationships and decision points of the work breakdown in its current state. Add any shared service or enabling infrastructures such as IT, human resources and leadership to the map. Ensure that the information gathered reflects your current business reality. Challenge any details that are merely assumptions, exaggerations or oversimplifications.
Step six Capture relevant data that’s measured in terms defined by the company, suppliers and customers, and ensure definitions are consistently understood to prevent data comparison flaws.
You want to capture the metrics or information available for each process piece and analyze/link the behaviors that each generates.
Conduct assessments, interviews or nonadvocate reviews to capture other data elements and create a comprehensive view of the total supply chain.
Step seven Analyze and identify wastes, inhibitors of flow and value, costs, risks to flow and risks to success criteria. Group these findings into enterprise themes and then analyze how each affects time, resources and money. It’s important to re-analyze step five to ensure that nothing was missed.
Step eight Create an ideal state based on a joint definition (i.e., by supplier, customer and company) of perfection. Include technical and social elements of this state such as work and information on demand; one-by-one processes or single-piece flow; defect-free work in administrative, production or service processes; lowest possible cost; committed and capable workforce; autonomous decision-making; rewards linked to performance; goal alignment and communications.
Obviously, achieving perfection is impossible, but setting it as a goal encourages breakthrough thinking and analysis that will create a more robust future state.
It also allows quality professionals to more fully integrate into the enterprise, thus eliminating any lingering “quality cop” images
Step nine Map out a future state you can reach in a relatively short time—e.g., 12 months—based upon the ideal consensus. Consideration must be taken of the behaviors required for success as well as success criteria determined by the customer, company and suppliers.
Step ten Assess and analyze the gaps in the company’s ability to achieve the future state. Create a balanced set of measurements for success, and confirm that the behaviors generated conform to future-state directives. A balanced scorecard approach allows those involved to create measures that complement each other. They can also use lean and Six Sigma to evaluate processes
Step eleven Establish and implement actions, programs and events to help create value and eliminate waste, thereby achieving the future state. Create necessary infrastructure to ensure leadership, integration, course corrections, validation and accountability for the changes. Analyze risks, change-management issues and other inhibitors to successful implementation
Step twelve Establish a renewal period—say, a rolling 12-month view—to revisit and adjust the future state as it moves toward the ideal. Build into this process stakeholder enrollment, ownership and accountability for all actions and ongoing analyses. Many quality professionals consider this step critical. Each opportunity to discuss, raise issues, analyze and renew activities with the total supply chain allows stakeholders to integrate the social changes needed for success.
What is the company’s vision and mission?
What are the company’s major processes or organizational flows?
What are the boundaries?
Who are the key value stakeholders?
How do key value stakeholders—i.e., the company, its suppliers and its customers—define value for the identified business life cycle?
What are the outcomes expected from the business and relationships with suppliers and customers?
Step two Customers’ and suppliers’ interactions occur at points all along the life cycle and thus are inseparable from the company processes noted in step one. If your analysis uncovers communication breakdowns that reduce value, add waste or reduce the passion for success, these should be clearly identified for intense analysis and scrutiny during subsequent steps.
Describe the relationship between each company department and its supplier or customer—is it cordial, collaborative, adversarial, nonexistent?
Describe the personalities of the people involved in the relationships. Are they proactive or reactive, responsive or procrastinating, talkers or listeners? Consider ways in which the relationships can be improved. At this point, it’s a good idea to evaluate how thorough you want the value stream map to be.
Assess other potential flows or shared services that might not be enterprisewide but run parallel to those already depicted. Enabling infrastructures such as information technology, e-business, human resources, accounting, and social/cultural customs should be included.
Finally, analyze external influences—societal, environmental, political—that might affect the map, as well as any destabilizing forces. These might include policies, laws, demographics or other trends.
Step three Assess and map the flow of products, programs, services, information, money and time based on the business life cycle defined in step one.
The resulting map and lists of influences represent the current state—or level one work breakdown—of the enterprise.
At this point, validate boundaries, values, company outcomes, vision and mission as identified in step one.
Adjust these as necessary to reflect current business realities.
Step four Take each portion of the current state and drill down a minimum of one layer to the details of constituent processes, flows, components or influences.
Assess the processes and document interfaces as well as the “softer” sides discussed in step two. This drilling down allows you to clearly see the interaction of the various flows, both technical and social, and to gather more specific data for analysis.
Step five Overlay all informational, social and technical components of the flow not already captured and mapped. Validate the connections, interrelationships and decision points of the work breakdown in its current state. Add any shared service or enabling infrastructures such as IT, human resources and leadership to the map. Ensure that the information gathered reflects your current business reality. Challenge any details that are merely assumptions, exaggerations or oversimplifications.
Step six Capture relevant data that’s measured in terms defined by the company, suppliers and customers, and ensure definitions are consistently understood to prevent data comparison flaws.
You want to capture the metrics or information available for each process piece and analyze/link the behaviors that each generates.
Conduct assessments, interviews or nonadvocate reviews to capture other data elements and create a comprehensive view of the total supply chain.
Step seven Analyze and identify wastes, inhibitors of flow and value, costs, risks to flow and risks to success criteria. Group these findings into enterprise themes and then analyze how each affects time, resources and money. It’s important to re-analyze step five to ensure that nothing was missed.
Step eight Create an ideal state based on a joint definition (i.e., by supplier, customer and company) of perfection. Include technical and social elements of this state such as work and information on demand; one-by-one processes or single-piece flow; defect-free work in administrative, production or service processes; lowest possible cost; committed and capable workforce; autonomous decision-making; rewards linked to performance; goal alignment and communications.
Obviously, achieving perfection is impossible, but setting it as a goal encourages breakthrough thinking and analysis that will create a more robust future state.
It also allows quality professionals to more fully integrate into the enterprise, thus eliminating any lingering “quality cop” images
Step nine Map out a future state you can reach in a relatively short time—e.g., 12 months—based upon the ideal consensus. Consideration must be taken of the behaviors required for success as well as success criteria determined by the customer, company and suppliers.
Step ten Assess and analyze the gaps in the company’s ability to achieve the future state. Create a balanced set of measurements for success, and confirm that the behaviors generated conform to future-state directives. A balanced scorecard approach allows those involved to create measures that complement each other. They can also use lean and Six Sigma to evaluate processes
Step eleven Establish and implement actions, programs and events to help create value and eliminate waste, thereby achieving the future state. Create necessary infrastructure to ensure leadership, integration, course corrections, validation and accountability for the changes. Analyze risks, change-management issues and other inhibitors to successful implementation
Step twelve Establish a renewal period—say, a rolling 12-month view—to revisit and adjust the future state as it moves toward the ideal. Build into this process stakeholder enrollment, ownership and accountability for all actions and ongoing analyses. Many quality professionals consider this step critical. Each opportunity to discuss, raise issues, analyze and renew activities with the total supply chain allows stakeholders to integrate the social changes needed for success.
