Page 48 - Design for Six Sigma a Roadmap for Product Development

26 Chapter Two

Input Customer
Supplier Books Process Output
Publishers Teaching Graduating Employers
Society
Administrators facility academic program students
High schools, Lab facility Professors, program setup, with Students
themselves
etc. Students, advisors, standards, etc. degrees
etc. Parents, etc.
Figure 2.6 SIPOC diagram of an academic teaching program.

Output. Graduating students with degrees.
Customers. Employers of future students and the students themselves.
Key requirements for output. Excellent combination of knowledge for future
career, high and consistent learning qualities, and so on.
Figure 2.6 is the SIPOC diagram of an academic department.

Several other process modeling and process analysis methods are
available, such as process mapping and value stream analysis, which
are very useful tools for Six Sigma. We will discuss them in Sec. 2.3.
Similar to a product, a process also has its development cycle and
life cycle, which is illustrated in Fig. 2.7.
The process life cycle and development cycle illustrated in Fig. 2.7 are
more appropriate for service processes or internal business processes of
a company.
There are many similarities between products and processes:
1. They all have customers. For product or service processes, the cus-
tomers are external customers; for internal business processes, the
customers are internal customers; they are the users of the process,
and they work for the same company. For example, the customers for
personnel department are people of other functional departments.
2. Both products and processes have to deliver functions; they all do
what they should do for their customers. Their mission is to achieve
their customers’ maximum satisfaction.
3. Both product and process need performance consistency. For example,
if a personnel department sometimes hires good employees, and other
times hires incompetent employees, it is not a good department.
4. Both products and processes go through similar development cycles
and life cycles.
Of course, there are differences between products and processes. For
example, after a product is delivered to the user, it is very difficult to
make changes, improvements, or remodeling for the product itself.
The similarities between products and processes indicate that many
methods and strategies for product quality assurance can be modified