In discovery phase , it is not obvious where the team should focus.
There might be many potential lean six sigma project across the process
and the Team is charged with identifying them prior to selecting one and carrying it to conclusion.
This identification approach is known as Discover and follows a slightly modified version of the roadmap used in Define and Measure in a regular project.
The output of the Discovery Phase is a clearer understanding of the process, along with aseries of identified projects or opportunities for the process.
Discovery phase Approach
The following sequence of tools is applied during Discovery Phase:
To
initiate the project, the Belt, Champion, and Process Owner meet to
construct the preliminary Charter.
They determine the initial scope and
the Team members who should beused. The initial scope typically is the
whole process under study.
At this stage, the likely metrics and
potential benefits are probably unknown.
After the initial Project Charter is complete, the Project Team is mobilized, and shortly there after, the first Team meeting can take place.
To help define the whole process, a SIPOC is useful, especially in understanding the scope and purpose of the process.
The SIPOC is an important tool in Discovery to address, "What really is the question to be answered?"
The central "Process" column of the SIPOC can be extracted and rotated 90o to become a High-Level Value Stream Map (VSM).
This map is a useful linear representation of the process that can help
in slicing up the process into manageable pieces to which to apply
projects.
After the SIPOC
is complete for the whole process, the next step is to determine the
Customer Requirements (again for the whole process). This is done in a
similar fashion to the regular Define approach by using a number of
tools to identify the major customer needs and metrics to determine
performance versus those needs.
To help frame what questions to ask the Customers regarding the process, it is useful to spend time as aTeam brainstorming the issues around it.
This can be done in the form of traditional Brainstorming,but it is preferable to use the tool known as Murphy's Analysis.
Note that the output of these
tools is absolutely not
the Voice of the Customer (VOC), but rather, these are the
Team'sinternal insights to help guide the structure of the VOC
questioning in the subsequent steps.
Based
on the some of the learning from the internal brainstorming, it should
be reasonably straight forward to put together an Interview Discussion
Guide and Customer Matrix and then interview Customers.
Some
processes have a multitude of Customers from whom the Team would like
some input to ensure that nothing key is missed, but really don't want
to spend time interviewing in depth.
To gain these Customer inputs, use
a survey that is mailed, handed directly to them, or, primarily for
internal Customers, posted on the wall where they can write directly on
it.
The survey usually will take one week to get the data back.
Surveys are notoriously error prone, so do not rely on this as your main source of Customer inputuse the interviews instead.
The VOC is distilled down into useful information by applying an Affinity Diagram.
After the Affinity Diagram is complete, a simple extraction yields the Customer Requirements Tree.
ThisTree represents a simple hierarchical structure of needs from the
highest abstract level down to individual facts and measures.
To
successfully create the Tree, it is often best to track the noted
metrics back to the set of more essential metrics behind the scenes. A
useful tool here is the 5 Whys.
Construct
a rigorous VSM including all the detailed steps for the Primary Entity
as it progresses through the process. At this point, don't map the
sub-steps of any VA step.
The VSM forms the structure around which the
process is sliced to form discrete pieces of process upon which
projects are based.
Examination
of the VSM should help the Team identify several key milestones along
the process that are useful points at which to take performance
readings.
The performance metrics (such as accuracy ratings) are the Ys
along the process that are important to the Customer.
Determine the Ys
taking the output of the Customer Requirements Tree and firming up Operational Definitions of the keymetrics.
Apply a Multi-CycleAnalysis
to the VSM to flesh out where the time is spent,along with an
indication of variation in times. Usually, it is the variability in step
times that causes the problems.
The
Team examines the data collected from the previous tools to populate the
VSM with data on the timings and the Ys.
At this point, the Team, Belt,
Champion, and Process Owner meet to identify projects within the VSM and
prioritize them.
At this point the Team is retasked to tackle the highest
priority project and the roadmap follows the regular DMAIC roadmap as outlined
in Guide,
