Page 117 - Six Sigma Demystified

98 Six SigMa DemystifieD

Nonetheless, cycle time metrics are valuable tools in achieving improvement
in Six Sigma projects. Even when the focus of the project is on quality or cost,
the value- stream analysis offers an opportunity for cycle time reduction through
elimination of non- value- added activities. As the drivers of a process become
clear in the analyze stage, some activities thought necessary for process control
will be found to have little effect. These can be eliminated, reducing the total
process cycle time.
Conversely, when CTS metrics are the primary project focus, it is often rec-
ommended to also baseline the process relative to CTQ metrics. It can happen
that efforts to reduce cycle times result in a detrimental effect on quality. At
times, there can be a perception of this effect, whether it exists or not. To avoid
this real or imagined impact, a baseline of key quality metrics performed in the
measure stage, prior to any improvement effort, will provide a sound basis for
evaluation of the cycle time reductions. This baseline is particularly well
deserved in regulated industries or any industry where quality levels are con-
tractual in nature.

Project examPle: Metric Definition

For the order processing efficiency example introduced previously, the team fo-
cused on two metrics related to project objectives: order processing time and
order processing errors. Referring to the top- level process map, order processing
encompassed activities performed by members of the sales, accounting, and ship-
ping departments. The team decided to baseline only the time required by the
sales staff because reduction of sales staff time was a primary focus of the project,
and this greatly reduced the data- collection effort. There were no available data to

baseline this aspect of the process, so the team, working with the sales department
manager, developed a simple means to collect the data using a spreadsheet. This
was slightly complicated by the intervention required for each order by the ac-
counting department and for download orders by the shipping department. in
consideration of these necessary activities, the time metric was defined to include
up until the order was passed to accounting; the time to e- mail the download
order was recorded separately and added into the metric for analysis.
The metric for order processing errors was envisioned as a means to baseline
the errors affecting the marketing campaign costs and the subsequent renewal
rate and renewal revenue. Recall from the project define stage that the marketing
campaigns were time- intensive (and thus costly) because of missing data associ-
ated with any given order in the customer relationship management (CRM) sys-