What is SIPOC? How to use a SIPOC diagram?

A business needs to recognize the problem they are working for before starting the project, especially the new businesses. The project manager should first understand the need of the process so that he could develop better strategies to get the best outcomes by running a successful and well-planned process.

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It is only possible when you use the tactics of the business world that the majority of you do not know at the beginning of the business but need to learn about these useful tactics to bring out fruitful results without letting any part of the project in the dark. 

Six Sigma methodologies have made their name in the world of business that includes different processes to make a project successful like define, measure, analyze, improve, and control that sums up at the end as DMAIC. Motorola introduced the six sigma methodology to the world in 1986 to control the quality of the product it is supplying to the world, followed by many other telecommunication companies worldwide. 

A complete guide on what is SIPOC? How to use a SIPOC diagram?

SIPOC is also a part of the sigma methodology that is preferably used during the measuring process to keep track of the quality and the direction of the process. SIPOC diagram is helpful for the business world as it provides the right options to prepare the documents of your project or process by using graphs, tables, pie charts, etc. 

SIPOC is the sum of five meaningful terms, Suppliers, Input, Process, Output, and customer, that helps you look into each term and find what you need to bring all of them in harmony. 

SIPOC being part of DMAIC is important to mark the role, responsibilities, and standards to ensure the best quality measures. SIPOC diagram is visual friendly as it is easy to read and elaborate each step of the process to make the movements among your team members. 

Let's find out more about What is the SIPOC? How to use a SIPOC diagram?

Purpose of using SIPOC diagram

When working for anything, there is a purpose behind it that initiates when we know to recognize the need and the problems, we are facing to achieve it. The basic purpose of the SIPOC diagram is to track out the customers and their needs and eventually organize a team to meet the needs of the customers by ensuring the quality process for the improvement of that particular project. There are some key guidelines to get your purpose fulfilled like:

Being a new business entity, if you do not know SIPOC, then make sure you arrange a professional training team to elaborate the SIPOC diagram and its applications to bring your projects to a high-quality level.

If you know something about SIPOC that you have learned or heard years ago, arrange a booster session for you and your employees where old and new both employees would better understand the SIPOC diagram. 

After that, when you and your team have both defined the purpose of your project and decided what you want from this project, now it is time to map out the process by using the SIPOC diagram that is sometimes also called a COPUS diagram. 

SIPOC Diagram's elaboration step by step through by discussing the components 

It is not difficult to map out the key elements of the SIPOC diagram and decide the steps to elaborate on the process you are going through. It is so easy as all the steps are hidden in the key components of the SIPOC diagram.  You would love to know about the SIPOC diagram when you come to know it is just a summarized form of identifying the customers, defining the goals by mentioning the input and reaching the output while going through the process. 

Do we need to move to more details such as What is the SIPOC? How to use a SIPOC diagram? Here is the detail of each key component taking as the step of the SIPOC diagram.

Understanding and defining the suppliers 

As the first letter of this SIPOC diagram says, it is a supplier that comes first. A supplier is anyone who is giving the direction or instruction to make a product or to bring some modification to an existing product. 

We consider a supplier as always, a stakeholder who provides input or invests something to generate and output, but it is not just about the investment. It is also about ideas and needs. So, we may also say that anyone who shares a key idea or gives some realistic instructions to make some worthy inputs to bring the reforms in the product you are making for the people. 

You also cannot say that the supplier is internal to your business. It can be someone who is external to your business even that he/she does not have any concern with your business but is willing to have better services or product features for the next time from your organization. So, according to the SIPOC diagram, the suppliers may be internal or external if they talk about the category.

Internal supplier 

Most high-ranked multinational companies hire their staff for long-term working on the production of products, making innovations in the field of technology, or bringing some modifications to the product. So, the staff hired by the company, like a project manager or software or civil engineers, all are the internal suppliers of that company who gives input to start any pre-defined process. 

External supplier 

Sometimes, it happens especially in the case of the software products, when the customers after using your company's product share their reviews where they highlight the weak areas or the things that need improvement for better working next time. These reviews also work as input to start a process. 

Deciding over the Input 

The second step of the SIPOC diagram is deciding the input. As we have discussed before, the suppliers decide it. The input of a process is the first and most important requirement on which all the process is dependent. Input may be in the form of products or services. So, you need to understand the purpose of input before finalizing it. The input of a process as per the requirements of the SIPOC diagram depends on the following. 

Needs of users/customers

It is the key rule that when a manufacturer is making a thing to sell, it is essential to keep in mind the needs of the public to which you are going to sell the product or services. Like if you are serving as a software house, you need to understand what you have given to the customers and now what do they want. 

  • The capability of the team working for a particular project
  • The team working on a particular project should be skillful at achieving the target. 
  • Planning of the Project manager 

It also depends on the planning of the project manager that ensures the clarity of each step and directs, team to collaborate for successful completion of the project.

Process; the actual working step of SIPOC 

After generating the input instructions, it is time to go through the process means passing through the actual working area. This step bridges the output and input to confirm the results that you can analyze later to decide what your inputs were and what you get in return as output. Keep the process name simple as one or two words, and it should be related to the services or the type of products you are selling. You can simply divide the process into small chunks to make it more effective and keep track of each and every step. 

  • Designing
  • The ingredients or requirements of the process
  • Tracking each step of the process 
  • Analyzing and maintaining the process outcomes 
  • Output, the final result of the process 

After processing, you need to imagine the results you want to get at the end. The results you are going to expect should be precise and measurable so that you can easily make the analysis of whether you get the same thing you were expecting when working on input and the process. 

Even while making an output strategy, you must consider the requirements and needs of the customers. It will let you generate the fruitful output as you will be looking into the process and then output as per the requirements of the customers that what they are expecting from you and what you will be selling to them. 

Customers, making them satisfied. 

The last step is to keep engaging the customers. While doing this step of the SIPOC diagram, you will be considering the strategies that you need to develop to keep the interest of your old customers and grab the new customers as well. You will decide in this step which ways you will be adopting to get remarkable results. 

Conclusion 

SIPOC diagram helps you to mark the right input and process as per the requirements of the customers by knowing their needs and requirement and manipulate the process to bring the results or outputs that you are expecting in the future.


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