Six Sigma often talks about improving a process to satisfy a customer. A process is easy to check when you are in the manufacturing business. In the public sector however where “product” takes the form of “service,” evaluating the process is quite confusing. But that was before when the public/service sector would shout, “but we don’t have a process!” Yet, with the onset of Six Sigma, the concept of “process” has become easy to define.
The public or service sector organizations just need to keep in mind the following basic principles:
1. All work is a process.
2. Understand what the customer wants and deliver it.
3. Get it right first time, every time.
4. Aim at prevention not detection.
5. The customer wants nothing to go wrong.
6. Focus on value adding not cost-adding.
A generic model for a process is that of SIPOC: Suppliers-Inputs-Process-Output-Customers. This tool may not be as useful in transactional processes such that happen in the public/service sector. But according to the article by onesixsigma, the important thing is to identify the process, or how your organization does its business.
And once a process is identified and agreed then the actions within the process that add value can be evaluated. Then your organization can determine which actions are wasteful. It is commonly accepted that there are seven or eight areas of waste:
1. Waiting for a decision or a document to arrive
2. Transporting documents from place to place (it is amazing how far documents travel in an organization)
3. Overproduction – how many reports are sent out that are never read?
4. Inappropriate processing – checking and rechecking information and documents
5. Unnecessary inventory – storing things just-in-case
6. Unnecessary motion – wandering around the building to find things
7. Correction / Defects – not getting it right first time and having to redo the task
8. Not utilising human resources – failure to involve those closest to the process in making improvements
Any organization who can reduce or even avoid these wastes, is well on its way to Six Sigma.
Improving Service and Public Sector Organisations
