Every time when a new Lean Six Sigma project starts, we create a SIPOC. I omit the details of the SIPOC because there are many resources on internet. Here I am going to write how I create the SIPOC in my typical project.
The SIPOC is a very handy tool with team members to do the following activities:
- Understand the overview of the process (or the project)
- Define the scope of the project
- Identify the stakeholders and their roles/responsibility
- Communicate with the stakeholders
The team members join to the project with their own expectation and opinion when a new project starts. So the SIPOC is necessary to achieve a common understanding of the project and to share a common goal (or objective) of the project within the team.
Defining the project objective from the customer viewpoint is pretty difficult. But if you use the SIPOC at the beginning of the project, you could identify the Key Process Output Variables (KPOV) as the main deliverable for the customer from the customer viewpoints.
The SIPOC can also be used as a preparation for the later phases in the Lean Six Sigma project. Before starting the Voice of Customer (VOC) activity, the communication planning, or the requirement identification with Quality Function Deployment (QFD), the SIPOC can provide an outline of the those activities.
The word “SIPOC” consists of the first letters of Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, and Customers. Although the columns in the SIPOC table are aligned in that order, we fill the columns in the sequence of POCIS or COPIS when creating the SIPOC table.
The sequence of POCIS is fit to a process improvement project because it starts from the Process. The sequence of COPIS on other hands is fit to a customer oriented project because it starts with the Customers. I mainly create the SIPOC in the sequence of POCIS. So the following steps explain the SIPOC in the sequence of POCIS.
P (Process)
The SIPOC starts by filling the P (Process) column. When filling the P column, the team could ask themselves the following questions:
- What is the current process (or future process) look like?
- When does the process start, and what is the starting process step?
- When does the process end, and what is the ending process step?
- What are the intermediate process steps?
The purpose of filling the P column is to define the scope of the project by identifying the starting process step and the ending process step.
O (Outputs)
The next column to fill is the O (Outputs). The team needs to identify the outcomes or the deliverable from each process step. The output can be a physical thing, an information, or a service. All outputs must be identified from the customer viewpoints and meet the customer requirements. If the outputs can be quantitatively evaluated as SMART goals, the outputs can be used to evaluate the project success.
C (Customers)
The next column to fill is the C (Customers). The team needs to identify the customers who use the outputs. Also you need to identify the requirements of the outputs from the customer viewpoints. The customer can be an internal customer or an external customer. Sometime the customer can be yourself.
Filling the C (Customers) and the O (Outputs) is an iteration process. To meet the customer requirements, the outputs must be redefined.
I (Inputs)
The next column to fill is the I (Inputs) column after understanding the process steps and the deliverable (i.e., outputs). The team needs to identify what kind of inputs (things, information, service, etc.) the team needs to provide the outputs to the customers.
They are the inputs to each process step, and the process step converts the inputs to the outputs.
S (Suppliers)
The final column to fill is the S (Suppliers) column. The team needs to identify the suppliers of the inputs. The suppliers can be internal, external, or yourself. Sometimes a supplier can be a customer too.
There could be many unknown factors when creating the SIPOC because it is usually created at earlier stage of the project. The SIPOC is a live document which keeps updating every time when a new discovery or a new understanding come. The SIPOC records the team’s understanding of the project. By using the SIPOC as a communication tool with the stakeholders, the probability of the project success could increase.
It won’t take time to create the first draft of SIPOC. A two-hours meeting with the team could be enough. After creating the first SIPOC, the team can use it as a useful communication tool.