Page 53 - Design for Six Sigma for Service (Six SIGMA Operational Methods)

Design for Six Sigma Road Map for Service 35

precisely? And how short is short? We may want to develop some detailed,
quantifiable performance metrics such as
1. Time between arrival and seating
2. Time between seating and menu delivery
3. Time between menu delivery and order taking
4. Time between order taking and meal delivery
Of course, there are some customer needs that are difficult to measure and
quantify, for example, “taste of food.” However, we can always develop
evaluation standards such as tasting scores, just like wine tasting scores.
Together with competitive benchmarking, we can develop workable per-
formance metrics for all important customer needs.

Step 3: Measure Our Current Performances and Measure and Analyze
Competitors’ Performances by Using the Performance Metrics Developed
in Step 2
After the performance metrics are determined, it is time to measure our
current performance levels. If possible, we should measure and compare
our performances with our major competitors’ performances.

Step 4: Determine the Relationship between Performance Metrics and
Customer Satisfaction and Determine the Specifications for Performance
Metrics
Not every performance metric is equally important; some performance
metrics are much more important than others in terms of their contribution
to customer values. Chapters 3 to 5 of this book discuss in detail how to
design customer surveys to determine the relationship between per-
formance metrics and customer value and develop priorities among per-
formance metrics. Chapter 5 also discusses how to develop the
specifications for performance metrics. For example, if “time between
order taking and meal delivery” is a key performance metric, and we find
that most of our competitors’ average time between order taking to meal
delivery is less than 15 minutes, then naturally we should set our speci-
fication on the time between order taking and meal delivery to be less than
15 minutes on average.

Example 2.2: Measure the Performances of Restaurants
This example (adapted from Ramaswamy 1996) is a continuation of Example 2.1,
assuming that the following performance metrics are developed to measure the
performances of restaurants:

• Degree of waiter patience
• Degree of waiter responsiveness