SIPOC stands for Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, and Customers. SIPOC process provides a template to define a process in order to map, measure, and/or improve it. It is represented in a five column tabular format. In the 1980s, SIPOC was used in the TQM programmers of different organizations.
Today, it is used as a tool in the Measure phase of Six Sigma’s Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control (DMAIC) methodology to identify the key elements of an improvement process.
The 3 factors you would focus on developing SIPOC
Voice of Customer (VoC):
This indicates the customer’s expectations from an organization or a service provider so that his wants, needs, requirements, and preferences are considered. To satisfy your customer, you need to listen to the voice of customers. The Japanese have a term called ‘Gemba’ to describe the true source of information about the voice of customer.
This real-life observation of the customer’s behavior to a product or a service cannot be replaced by just information gathering from surveys and interviews. To understand the voice of customer, you can follow the customer feedback process.
The feedback process generally consists of identifying the target customer, preparing questionnaires, collecting feedback through customer interaction, analyzing the feedback, generating a feedback report, and acting on the basis of the report.
Voice of Process (VoP):
VoP indicates the quality of process that you are currently following so that you can examine if it is capable of accomplishing the quality objectives. VoP represents the task, purpose, and description of a process in terms of simple questions, such as who, what, when, where, why, and how.
The answers to these questions give you a clear idea about the changes that you would like to introduce in an existing process.
Voice of Business (VoB):
This represents your organizational needs in terms of customer satisfaction, quality, growth, revenue, profit, market image, market share, and suppliers’ feedback. It reflects both productivity and profitability of an organization.
Therefore, you can identify the VoB from the business plan’s projections and financial information. This information allows analysts to pinpoint the financial outcomes of the organization and reveal their ultimate value.
Managers can identify value levers (strategic, process, customer, and financial) and priorities them. This will enable them to translate the evaluation information into opportunity areas. Your business will deliver the right results when you are able to identify the VoC and work on the VoP.
