We have heard it all before. The customer is always right and what the customer says ¦ goes! Yeah well, that is true ¦ to a point. We will do whatever it takes to make the customer happy, but we are not going to change our core operational process because that is what made our company successful. Does this mantra sound familiar?

Changing the Customer Experience

It should sound familiar, because it is what we do. We address customer concerns and bend over backwards to make them happy, in that specific situation. Then, we go right back to doing what we did before. Core policies and processes rarely change, no matter how many customer concerns are focused on them. The view is typical, since the C-Suite understands the deepest detail of what goes on in the business, customers may be complaining, but they are really out of touch with their expectations. In the dance of customer service, we continue to waltz with our customers to make them happy, without changing what is truly making them unhappy.

The fact is, that if we want to make real, substantive change with the customer experience, we must hear the customers and be willing to make changes to our deepest core processes. Sound like a simple thing? Well, it should be, but making it happen is significantly more difficult. Businesses, no matter the size or the years established, must be willing to change things that just irk our customers. Not listening and making real changes costs businesses in many ways. It significantly frustrates and disenfranchises customers in slow moving herds. As the customers move away, businesses then start to feel the financial impact on their bottom line. Lavishing unhappy customers with deals, discounts and groveling is actually a temporary fix to a long term problem. Before you know it, the customer will be tired of your lip service and the freebies you provide just won’t retain their loyalty.

Making Lasting Change

It is time that business must embrace real change when dealing with their customer experience. That transformation must come through deep and significant change happening with core operational processes. A structured VoC (Voice of the Customer) program, SIPOC diagram or Customer Journey Map, managed by trained and experienced Lean Six Sigma professionals, can achieve the desired results.

The post Customer Experience: What Are We Really Fixing? appeared first on 6sigma.

Process: This is the day-to-day activity that must occur to produce a product or service.

Process Map/Flow Chart: This a chart that visually shows the series of steps, describes the steps and who does them to produce a product or service. This will show the flow of the process(s) or events that has to happen to produce a product or service.  

SIPOC: Stands for Suppliers-Inputs-Process-Outputs-Customers. This is used to define a process from beginning to end.

PDCA: Plan-Do-Check-Act. This is an improvement methodology that is quite easy to use and very effective.

Output: This is what is produced by a process step, the result.

Affinity Diagram: This is a tool to organize ideas and data into priorities and categories.

Benchmarking: This is used to set a standard by comparing a set of business processes and performances to the industry’s best practices and seeing if there is a gap that can be fixed.

Defect: Anything that isn’t done right the first time.

Defect Opportunity: Any task or activity that can be measured that does not fulfill the requirement for value.

Poka-yoke: Mistake proofing. This is an action you take in Six Sigma to significantly lower the opportunity for error so much so that the customer never experiences the error.

Input: This is a resource added by a supplier to the process; this can be a product, service, data, even labor.

For more information on our Lean Six Sigma courses and services please visit 6sigma.com. 

The post In Other Words, It’s the Language of Six Sigma appeared first on 6sigma.

You need to use this tool before you approach the powers that be…the boss! So what is the DMAIC template?

Define Phase: Define the problem and how it affects the day-to-day processes. Also, state how fixing the problem would benefit the company and any other benefits that come out of this project. You could create a SIPOC diagram and highlight the target step; this will help the viewer visualize the scope of the problem and the processes that it takes or impacts. Other tools to use are the Pareto chart and a process map —both make great visuals for instant comprehension.

Note: The SIPOC stands for Suppliers-Inputs-Process-Outputs-Customers

Measure Phase: Give the baseline or “as-is” current process. Provide any data that validates your point in the Define Phase. If you have any access to datasheets, you could create a Value Stream Map and Cause & Effect diagram. 

Analyze Phase: Show, identify and validate the critical causes. In the Analyze Phase, this helps show all the possible failure modes of the current process. Another valuable technique used in Six Sigma is Regression Analysis, which predicts how one variable affects another shown in graphics without casting any positive or negative values.

Improve Phase: Give only the best potential solutions, this is after you have done your homework to validate those solutions. Perhaps you have developed pilot studies to implement, which will help prove your point. 

Control Phase: Show the control plan you have created to sustain the new solution you’ve created. This must be a full-scale solution to show how this is not just probable, but a must-do. The tools you could use are control charts and poka-yoke. Also be ready, because anyone that is this thorough will get noticed and deserves to move up in the company!

For more information on our Six Sigma training courses and services, please visit 6sigma.com. 

The post If It’s Clear and Concise, Then Six Sigma DMAIC Is Involved appeared first on 6sigma.

In 2000, a landmark report dubbed To Err is Human” was published by the Institute of Medicine that aimed to place issues of safety, errors and management of quality on the radar of all healthcare providers as well as accreditation agencies. Among its aims was the specification that healthcare systems should be made more efficient so that the resources available are put to use in offering value for money spent while reducing waste. Among the areas identified as wasteful in a large number of healthcare facilities was the billing process.

Application of lean and Six Sigma processes in healthcare quality management has rapidly grown over the past decade, especially in hospitals, clinics and clinical laboratories. In order to decrease the costs associated with healthcare, billing processes are investigated in order to identify areas where defects occur and determine where Six Sigma tools could be applied to improve defective processes.

Define

During the Define phase of a Six Sigma project, the implementation team is challenged to find a problem, define its scope and establish any measures that can be taken to bring about improvements. To gain a better understanding of the billing process, it is necessary to create a Supplier-Input-Process-Output-Customer (SIPOC) diagram.

The team also collects Voice of the Customer information related to the process in order to set up a baseline for the assessment of customer satisfaction with the process output, while identifying and prioritizing the main characteristics of quality, customer satisfaction and the project stakeholders.

In a healthcare billing scenario, the process customers are mainly providers those who work in medical information management and patient accounts departments, who generate a healthcare organization’s invoices.

Measure

Measurement of the billing process starts with plotting dollar amounts for all patient care procedures and tests that were conducted but were not billed over the course of a set period of several months. The result is a process control chart that gives a visual representation of average monthly billing for any test conducted.

This is used to find out how frequently individual procedures and lab tests were conducted but were not billed. This creates a baseline against which the Six Sigma team could assess changes after the interventions they propose.

In many cases, unbilled procedures can be linked directly to specific areas of the healthcare system. Six Sigma can focus attention on particular departments, clinics and labs to establish the physicians who conducted or ordered for the unbilled clinical procedures.

Analyze

The Six Sigma Analyze phase involves measuring how frequently clinical procedures are carried out but are not billed as a result of systemic defects. The team then goes ahead to generate a Cause-Effect Tree diagram to establish the reason for the defects.

The Cause-Effect Tree diagram helps the team to display and visualize the problems and their root causes plotted in contrasting colors. In addition, the Cause-Effect diagram allows them to look into possible proximal causes as well, which may also be targeted for intervention. Many cases of billing defects in healthcare systems boil down to poor documentation of necessity of applied clinical procedures.

Improve

After the causes of the unbilled medical procedures have been identified, possible solutions can be laid down within an Impact Effort Grid diagram. To improve documentation of the necessity of clinical procedures, one solution could be to implement an electronic ordering system for any request that would require physicians and lab techs to input the medical necessity or any procedure needed.

Cheat Sheet’ printouts are also common, as they help healthcare providers to know which procedures are necessary based on the diagnosis of the patient’s symptoms, while also educating the clinical staff involved in ordering of procedures and the request of requisitions.

The Impact Effort diagram allows the team to rank various solutions on the basis of their impact and efforts, letting them easily identify interventions that offer the greatest impact while requiring the least amount of effort.

Control

After putting interventions in place, there are multiple steps within the Control phase that help to monitor improvements, including:

• Documenting process changes: Keeping records of any requisitions and requested procedures by all parties involved including physicians, laboratory technicians, clinic managers and patient accounts.
• Support of process changes: After changes are made, reports are produced, which summarize the billing defects identified and how frequently they occur. The reports are shared with physicians and management.
• Recommending future plans: This is an overview of any other initiatives that can be taken to look at the issues identified in a broader sense.

Conclusion

Application of Six Sigma tools to improve the quality of processes within a healthcare setting is vital in identifying specific billing-related processes that require modification and improvement. Specific interventions can then be applied to the billing process in order to maintain improved performance.

The post How to Use Six Sigma to Reduce Billing Errors in Healthcare appeared first on 6sigma.

Getting an overview of your operations in their current state can be a challenge, especially in a more complex organization that has multiple layers in its work. This is where tools like SIPOC and the cause and effect diagram come into play, and understanding their applications is critical for any leader who wants to drive their company towards constant improvement rather than eventually finding it stuck in a rut.

What is SIPOC?

SIPOC stands for Supplier, Input, Process, Output, Customers, and it’s a tool that can display various data points about your organization in a tabular manner, allowing you to see exactly where things stand in each of those areas of your operations. This might sound like something straightforward that can possibly be investigated in other manners too, but the thing about SIPOC is that it allows you to align those different data points in a way that gives you a full overview of the current situation.

The way the tool works is implied in its name the table produced from its application contains five columns, one for each of the five elements being studied. A great benefit of its proper application is that it allows people to get involved in a new concept without actually having a deep understanding of it. SIPOC gives them an overview that’s easy to follow, even for those without any direct experience in this part of the organization’s work. It can also be useful in cases where a certain system has already been discussed in the past, but due to the length of time that’s passed since then, most people have forgotten the important details at this point.

What is a Cause and Effect Diagram?

The cause and effect diagram is another commonly used tool in managing larger organizations, and it’s great for visualizing various concepts. Its main use is to present the root cause of a specific issue in a visual manner, allowing even people without much experience in that field to get an idea for what might have gone wrong. At the same time, it’s a relatively simple to use tool that can be implemented into the work of most organizations very easily and without any extra hassle.

Considering the critical importance of identifying root causes in certain situations, using the cause and effect diagram effectively can lead to great improvements in your workflow if you implement it properly. The one thing that’s important to remember here is that it’s not a universal solution to every problem, and in some cases, you’ll need to visualize the root cause of a certain issue in an alternative manner.

Putting the Two to Work Together

Both tools are used for visualizing certain data points but in slightly different ways. SIPOC relies more on organizing data in a tabular structure with pre-defined columns for each type of data point being entered, while a cause and effect diagram is more concerned with delivering a concise visual overview of the problem, indicating the directions of the influence of different points along the diagram.

Combining the two can be great for cases where a problem needs to be analyzed from more than one perspective, but their combination is also not something that you’ll need to do at every point of your operations. A situation that would call for such an approach is, for example, one where you need to explain the root cause of a problem to a large group of people of diverse backgrounds, and not all of them are already on board the current project. Combined with a severe lack of specific domain knowledge, this can be a messy situation that can be very difficult to get through for all parties involved. However, by introducing a SIPOC table to list all the core components of the system, things can be made to work much more smoothly.

Conclusion

You can easily address many problems of your organization by clever application of SIPOC and cause and effect diagrams, but it requires careful study of both methods, and developing enough intuition for how each of them works. It’s also important to understand that not every situation calls for the use of this combination, and in some cases you’d be better off focusing on either of the two.

The post Solving Business Problems with SIPOC and the Cause and Effect Diagram appeared first on 6sigma.

The initial step of a Six Sigma implementation project is making a decision whether the process being examined is a right fit for the tools utilized in the methodology. As a matter of fact, there exists a method to help establish what process can be adapted for the Six Sigma method. This tool, known as SIPOC, is essential especially for a company carrying out a Six Sigma project for the first time.

SIPOC is an acronym for Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs and Customers. This methodology makes use of information from each of these areas to create an overall map of a process and provide a high-level view of the entire Six Sigma project.

In the end, the SIPOC methodology is an approach that guides an organization toward the achievement of less wasteful and more efficient business processes.

Importance of the SIPOC Diagram

The SIPOC diagram is considered a type of process mapping. This term is used to describe how a project’s goals are put together and, in certain cases, outlines the steps through which the goals should be accomplished. Despite its inherent simplicity, it is a highly effective way to ensure that every member of the project team and the executives of an organization stay on the same page.

SIPOC provides the Six Sigma team with a high-level map of the process, in order to enable leadership to explain the project quickly and to offer a common point of reference for all members of the team. A SIPOC diagram also helps in the identification of problems and isolation of areas which are unnecessary or offer little useful value.

Analysis of a SIPOC Diagram

The SIPOC methodology can be best accomplished through brainstorming sessions and teamwork. In these sessions, the members of the team come up with the variables which are relevant to a business process. However, in analyzing a SIPOC diagram, it is vital to first establish what is required for business inputs and outputs. For our breakdown of the SIPOC diagram, we will use the example of a baking process:

Inputs

In a bakery business, the inputs are raw materials which are used, and form the major components of the output. With regard to the baking process, the requirements for inputs are:

• The raw materials must be fresh
• They need to be reasonably priced
• The inputs should be readily available

Outputs

The outputs are the products resulting from the baking process. Outputs are also the final products which will be sold to the customer. The outputs produced should always be a mirror of the company’s positioning and goals in the market. A few possible requirements for the outputs of the process include:

• Freshness
• Great taste and presentation
• Affordability
• Accessibility by consumers

Once the inputs and outputs have been described, the methodology then looks at whether the suppliers address the input requirements. It also examines if the products offered are in line with the needs of the customer.

Suppliers

Suppliers need to provide inputs that meet business needs and unique specifications. Among the questions that should be asked to help determine whether a bakery has the right suppliers include:

• Are they able to meet demand for inputs?
• Do they provide inputs of sufficient quality?
• Are their prices reasonable?
• Is there a backup plan if the main supplier is unable to deliver?
• Is it advantageous, financially and reputation-wide, to be associated with the supplier?

Customers

The customers are the end users of the baked products and are the people who pay for what the bakery offers. Through the use of Voice of Customer (VOC), here are some questions which can guide the business to identify what the customer wants or needs:

• What quality of bread do you need?
• How much money are you willing to spend on a loaf of bread or a birthday cake?
• Where do you purchase your bread?
• Do you buy pastries often?

Conclusion

Employing SIPOC to improve established processes is not unusual, especially if turnout on output or sales are low, or if the ratio of expenses to income is unusually high. The methodology helps to determine if a particular process still works in favor of the business. It provides a clearer picture of whether more resources should be dedicated or a process streamlined to provide higher efficiency.

The post Breaking Down the SIPOC Diagram appeared first on 6sigma.

Six Sigma Yellow Belt Curriculum

• Core Yellow Belt Techniques and Ideas 

  Our two-day course introduces process mapping (6-foot view), C&E matrices, effects analysis, failure modes, and fundamental statistics. Likewise, we teach how to comprehend and create SIPOC diagrams, as well as develop graphs. Software like Minitab is an essential tool in Six Sigma, which is why we provide a crash course in how to use it effectively.

• Competitive Strategy

  Six Sigma relies on several important principles to make the most impact on production process improvement.

1. Operational Excellence is a key principle in Yellow Belt curriculums, as it encourages businesses and production lines to operate at optimal levels. Yellow Belt curriculums should teach trainees how to implement OE processes to different types of enterprise. Ideally, OE principles should be taught in a practical and theoretical sense. That way, Yellow Belts will have the best of both worlds when it comes to Six Sigma skills. The practical expertise to make lasting changes towards process improvement, and the theoretical knowledge to back them up.

2. Customer Intimacy is another important principle in Yellow Belt training. On our Yellow Belt curriculum, we teach trainees how to understand value streams within businesses, as well as the many ways in which customer expectation and demand affects production. Yellow Belts should be able to identify areas that require attention, such as those affecting customer satisfaction. 

3. Product and Cost Leadership strategies also form an essential part of Yellow Belt work. Product Leadership pushes companies to produce innovative products and adapt existing services in a creative manner. Cost Leadership is similar in that it pushes a company to take advantage of market share by supplying quality products at competitive prices. Both strategies help to outdo competitors and position a company as leaders in cost and production. Yellow Belts should understand the fundamentals of both if they are to make any significant process changes. 

• Continuous Improvement (Kaizen)

  Additionally, Kaizen is a key mindset for businesses to have. Instead of letting processes fester and accumulate waste over time, employees should be taught to seek out and recognize problems as they occur. Using Yellow Belt knowledge, Six Sigma practitioners need to understand Kaizen and how it can drive lasting process changes. 

• Six Sigma (and Lean)

  Six Sigma and Lean forms the groundwork of all Yellow Belt work. All Yellow Belts should possess a strong grasp of Six Sigma’s fundamental methodologies. Yellow Belts should understand the value, attitudes, and goals of Six Sigma. Our aim is to incorporate more Lean elements into our courses, to help students realize effective improvements in practice. 

• Organizational Culture and Change Management

  Six Sigma demands teamwork, and project management and leadership skills are essential qualities in Yellow Belt training. While Yellow Belts occupy varying positions, they still form part of an important hierarchy which they must understand. In leadership roles, Yellow Belts should also be knowledgeable of Top-Down and Bottom-Up approaches to change management.

The post What Should be in a Six Sigma Yellow Belt Curriculum? appeared first on 6sigma.