define phase six sigma case study

The important pre-project work was completed by a senior leadership of an IT services company and discovered the area of the business which needed the focus of a DMAIC project team. The team began the Six sigma case study by understanding and comprehending the goals, scope and business case of the project beginning with the Define phase. In the Define phase the focus is on defining, measuring, analyzing, improving and controlling the process and the problem. The DMAIC roadmap was prepared to highlight what needs to be done in the following areas during the Define phase: 1. In the project charter, the key elements are problem statement, business case and goal statement. For the project charter, the project team also set its initial set of tasks, targets, schedule, responsibilities, and plan of communication. After evaluating the project charter with their experts, team members began work on the next step customer requirements. 2. In a lot of processes, some customers pay for products or services or there are ones who sheerly depend on the company, like employees. An SIPOC table shows a detailed information of all the important customers, their requirements from the process, and the related step of the process and dependencies of supplier. Studying the SIPOC table, the team summarized the learning of what is important to customers in the categories of requirement statements and measures. 3. The process was mapped by the team at a high level. Doing so an initiating event moves into and through the process of resolution. During the Measure phase, the process map is of a great help. The define phase is very significant and undoubtedly inevitable. Therefore, all the steps must be conducted with absolute care to reach the desired goal.

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Case Study: Six Sigma for Small Business

Six Sigma has proven to work for huge companies like Motorola and GE, which accumulate a lot of waste and redundancy because of their sheer size. But what about smaller organizations? What about local businesses?

What about your company?

Is Six Sigma worthwhile for smaller institutions who don’t have hundred-man teams, or thousand-step processes?

Well, in October 2017, three people asked that same question. They conducted a study, and they published their findings in the Advances of Mechanic Engineering section of SAGE Journals .

Two of the authors – Murilo Riyuzo Vendrame Takao and Iris Bento da Silva – work in mechanical engineering at the University of São Paulo, in São Carlos Brazil. The other author, Jason Woldt, teaches management classes at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville. They put their heads together to create a comprehensive study on the effects of Six Sigma, as it applied to one specific small-to-medium-sized enterprise…

A plumbing product distribution business.

Spoilers: Six Sigma works.

It has worked for huge businesses like General Electric, and it still works for small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) like your neighborhood lemonade stand.

“This article uses a case study highlighting the implementation of Six Sigma methodology in a North American manufacturer of plumbing products (SME). Each step of the process is properly described, and the results are also presented,” the authors said.

“We conclude that it is possible to identify the improvements and benefits achieved by the implementation of the Six Sigma quality program in an SME environment.”

How did they reach this conclusion? What did they find?

The Six Sigma Difference

They discovered that Six Sigma is different from other quality management programs because of the structured application of its tools and procedures (and, specifically, how those tools integrate with the goals of an organization).

These tools are used to facilitate each step of DMAIC – a project development framework, and a tent-pole of Six Sigma. It stands for…

Define: Figure out the scope and importance of your project, identify the needs of your consumers, and then assemble the team responsible for the project’s execution.

Measure: Pinpoint the problem you’re trying to solve, gather all the data you need, determine priority problems, and establish goals.

Analyze: Discover the cause of the priority problems and figure out where the problems start.

Improve: Propose, evaluate, and implement solutions to priority problems.

Control: Maintain the scope of the long-term goal, monitor performance, and take corrective action to keep on track.

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Levels of Six Sigma

DMAIC works across all levels and scopes of Six Sigma projects and practitioners. And for your reference, Six Sigma features a hierarchy of six components:

White and Yellow Belts: those practitioners who are trained in the basic tools of Six Sigma.

Green Belts: those practitioners dedicated to improvements within a project.

Black Belts: those practitioners who lead projects and train staff.

Master Black Belts: those practitioners who connect the general management of Six Sigma projects to the people responsible for the improvement projects.

Champions: members of the executive committee.

Sponsors: those who promote and define the guidelines for Six Sigma implementation.

The Case Study

There are dozens of tools that can be used during DMAIC, and the research dives into their case study to show a few tools in action.

The case study covers a period of about 18 months, following (as previously mentioned) a plumbing product distributor. The company wasn’t being well-received by its customers, and it endeavored to find out why.

Enter the Define phase. One of the tools they used was called voice of the customer (VoC), which defines the needs and requirements of your customer base. It’s a very important tool for a company that’s not getting a lot of positive reviews. For the case study, VoC showed that customers expected prompt delivery, correct product selection, and a knowledgeable distribution team.

So, with their problem discovered, they ventured into the Analyze phase, where they worked to answer one question – why was their delivery so slow, compared to their competitors? They brainstormed causes, and came up with four potential causes: (1) the accuracy of the sales plans, (2) safety stock issues, (3) vendor delivery performance, and (4) falling behind the manufacturing schedule. They conducted regression analysis on all potential causes, to see which one would cause the most trouble. And they found it. After creating a Pareto diagram , they realized that 74% of their sales came from only 21% of their products – and there wasn’t enough safety stock to get those in-demand products to all the customers who wanted them.

That led to the Improve phase, where they aimed to solve the problem. They started by implementing a monthly demand review, to make sure the in-demand products stayed in-demand, and it wasn’t a one-time fluke. The second measure was to actually order and provide the customers with the products they wanted.

The Control phase was simple. They wanted to make sure their solutions worked for as long as possible, so they created plans to monitor sales on their bestselling 21% of products (to make sure they weren’t exceeding or under-supplying demand). And every year, they’d review how well those products sold; if a product started following out of high demand, they could replace it with a product that was coming into high demand.

The Results

After 18 months with the plumbing product distributor, the researchers came to a confident conclusion.

“This case study illustrates that quality management and its tools should be increasingly adopted regardless of whether they are SMEs or large companies. Thus, in order to achieve competitiveness, the Six Sigma methodology should be much more applied in the SMEs, due to the interrelationship with the stakeholders and limited use of consultancies.”

Using Six Sigma principles , the company in the case study increased their annual sales by $248,034. They reduced delivery time by more than four full days.

The Takeaway

This research is another point in favor of process improvement methodologies. It doesn’t matter how big your company is, how many employees you have, or how much revenue you gross every year.

All. Companies. Have. Processes.

Whether you’re distributing plumbing supplies, making billion-dollar acquisitions, or selling lemonade on the street corner, Six Sigma is absolutely worth looking into.

Home / Six Sigma / The 5 Deliverables of Six Sigma Define Phase

The 5 Deliverables of Six Sigma Define Phase

A Six Sigma project is divided into five phases: Define, Measure Phase, Analyze, Improve, and Control. As you will learn in a Lean Six Sigma Green Belt course , these five stages are abbreviated as DMAIC . In order to certify as a Six Sigma Green Belt , you have to have a solid understanding of Six Sigma principles and the whole Six Sigma approach . To do that, you have to understand each phase in detail. As also explained in the online free Six Sigma training a Six Sigma project cannot start without going through the Six Sigma Define stage.

Attend our 100% Online & Self-Paced Free Six Sigma Training .

The problem statement is also called an Opportunity Statement . Let us try to understand the background of the word ‘Opportunity’. An opportunity refers to process improvement or process excellence opportunity to exceed stakeholders’ expectations. The need for a Six Sigma project can arise from a business problem or an improvement opportunity. An improvement opportunity may not necessarily be a business problem.

The second point indicates that the project team needs to identify the stakeholders served by the process. In the Six Sigma Define phase, the Six Sigma project team identifies the internal and external stakeholders being served by the process under consideration. The team studies and analyzes customer requirements too. The data and information regarding customer needs and expectations are called the Voice of the Customer (VoC) data. There are different methods and techniques of VoC data collection such as qualitative and/or quantitative, subjective and/or objective methods.

The third point is about writing a plan to complete the project . Once the business problem is found feasible to be undertaken in the form of a Six Sigma project, the project team comes up with the project charter or agreement which normally consists of an end-to-end plan to complete the Six Sigma project.

5 Key Deliverables

Let us have a look at the 5 key deliverables in the Lean Six Sigma Define phase. These deliverables are nothing but the objectives of the Define phase. Let’s discuss these one by one:

The 1st Lean Six Sigma Define Phase Key Deliverable: Process Map

The first key deliverable of the Six Sigma Define phase is to understand what the project is all about . In order to understand the project, we need to have sufficient know-how about the process as well. Once we understand the process, we will have insight into the causes of inefficiency and frustration so that improvements can be made. A Process Flowchart Process map or Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) document should be able to help you drill down into the process

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The 2nd Six Sigma Define Phase Key Deliverable: Project Scope

The second key deliverable of the Six Sigma Define phase is to determine the boundaries of the process area for improvement . In simple words, determining the process boundaries means understanding where the process begins and ends. The scoping study in a Six Sigma project normally consists of determining boundaries in terms of documenting a list of specific project goals, deliverables, tasks, costs, and timelines. In the Six Sigma Define phase, the project leaders are responsible for clarifying the purpose and scope of the project. They need to be well aware of the problem area and the kind of improvement that is required to be made.

The 3rd Six Sigma Define Phase Key Deliverable: Identify Stakeholders

The third deliverable of the Six Sigma Define Phase is to identify all the stakeholders (Internal and External) served by the process . A stakeholder is anyone impacted by the project. The impact could be positive or negative; of course. Every process will have internal and external stakeholders to whom it is catering to. Depending on the kind of organizational setup, the stakeholders and their expectations would certainly vary.

In the Six Sigma Define phase, the project manager needs to identify all key and non-key stakeholders required to support and sustain the project and its improvement. Internal key and non-key stakeholders are normally your colleagues, supervisors, managers, directors, etc. External key and non-key stakeholders are normally your vendors, customers, suppliers, creditors, etc.

The 4th Six Sigma Define Phase Key Deliverable: Define Stakeholder Requirements

The fourth deliverable of the Six Sigma Define phase is to define stakeholders’ requirements. To add to what we previously discussed regarding identifying internal and external stakeholders, the project leader or manager, during the Six Sigma Define phase itself, has to define internal and external stakeholders’ needs, requirements and expectations . Just to give you a quick brief, defining customer expectations will have two steps:

The 5th Six Sigma Define Phase Key Deliverable: Create Project Plans

The fifth key deliverable of the Six Sigma Define phase is to create a plan to complete the Six Sigma project. A plan to complete the project is normally one of the components of the Project Agreement and can be as exhaustive as it needs to be complete and comprehensive. The project plan normally consists of Resource Plan, Stakeholder Management Plan, Communication Management Plan, Scope Management Plan, Cost/Benefit plan, etc.

The first output of the Six Sigma Define phase is the Project Charter. By the end of the Six Sigma Define phase, the project team will be ready with a project charter or agreement; which is duly approved or signed off by the Six Sigma project champions or sponsors. The team will also have a list of feasible customer requirements or expectations that need to be fulfilled as a result of the implementation of the solutions by the Six Sigma projects. The documented flowchart or process map can also be published by the project team at the end of the Six Sigma Define phase. The process map or flowchart would belong to the process where the business problem occurs and recurs in due course.

This article gives an overview of the Six Sigma Define phase. There is much more information available on this topic such as how to create a burning platform and a business case, how to draw up a process map, the SIPOC principle, etc. The Six Sigma Define Phase is the foundation for the whole Six Sigma project. By following the steps of the Six Siga Define phase carefully and completely, you will have a solid foundation on which to build the rest of the Six Sigma stages.

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