Hi folks, this post is going to be more technical, rather than a personal experience. When the team was in the stage of making the AS-IS report (this report primarily tries to give an overview of the current business flow of the organization), we came across something called SIPOC. I found this tool pretty interesting and worth sharing here. This post will primarily talk about SIPOC and my learning.This tool is used in process management and improvement activity. SIPOC gives a high level understanding of the process. It gives an overview of what is the process all about along with information on who all are the participants in this process and what are their inputs. It primarily gives a structured understanding of the process before the process owners make the process maps.
SIPOC stands for
S: Supplier
I: Input
P: Process
O: Output
C: Customer
Now let us try to understand all these individual alphabets with some relevant examples.
Supplier (S): These are the people who supply the inputs. It is mandatory that every supplier will provide some input to the process. It is not possible that there will be a supplier who is not supplying any input to the process. In many cases, the supplier and the Customer may be the same. These are primarily end-to-end processes.
Input (I): These are the things that will start or rather trigger the process..
Process (P): Generally the process is defined as a combination of verb + noun form.
Output (O): These are the things that the process produces. These are generally tangible.
Customer (C): These are the people who will receive the output. Just like every supplier should at least have one input, in the same way every output should have a customer.
We will take the example of a basic tendering procedure for purchase of some material for the Civil dept., by the Materials dept. in a manufacturing organization:
Supplier: Indenting department – the one who wants to purchase some material.
Approved Vendors – the one who will quote for the tender
Input: Purchase Request along with the specifications to the Materials department
Quotations from the vendors
Process: Tendering Process (As I had said before, the name of the process should be a combination of Verb+ noun form)
Output: Approved Tender
Customer: Indenting department.
From my experience on SIPOC, I have found that it helps a lot if we add any boundaries that are there to the process. For example, maybe the tender can be floated to only approved parties and not all the vendors. So, it is advisable that we add that element to SIPOC.
Also, when you are talking about input, consider all the possible inputs to the process that is defined. Generally input is said to be the trigger for the process to start. But it should also include all other things that can trigger some or the other activity in the process. This becomes useful when you are defining an entire department as a process. For example, the primary input for production department should be raw material to start production, but annual target can also be an input.
I am also enclosing a diagram of a tendering process. This diagram has been created using TIBCO. It’s a freeware and can be used for business modeling just like Microsoft Visio.
Supplier (S): These are the people who supply the inputs. It is mandatory that every supplier will provide some input to the process. It is not possible that there will be a supplier who is not supplying any input to the process. In many cases, the supplier and the Customer may be the same. These are primarily end-to-end processes.
Input (I): These are the things that will start or rather trigger the process..
Process (P): Generally the process is defined as a combination of verb + noun form.
Output (O): These are the things that the process produces. These are generally tangible.
Customer (C): These are the people who will receive the output. Just like every supplier should at least have one input, in the same way every output should have a customer.
We will take the example of a basic tendering procedure for purchase of some material for the Civil dept., by the Materials dept. in a manufacturing organization:
Supplier: Indenting department – the one who wants to purchase some material.
Approved Vendors – the one who will quote for the tender
Input: Purchase Request along with the specifications to the Materials department
Quotations from the vendors
Process: Tendering Process (As I had said before, the name of the process should be a combination of Verb+ noun form)
Output: Approved Tender
Customer: Indenting department.
From my experience on SIPOC, I have found that it helps a lot if we add any boundaries that are there to the process. For example, maybe the tender can be floated to only approved parties and not all the vendors. So, it is advisable that we add that element to SIPOC.
Also, when you are talking about input, consider all the possible inputs to the process that is defined. Generally input is said to be the trigger for the process to start. But it should also include all other things that can trigger some or the other activity in the process. This becomes useful when you are defining an entire department as a process. For example, the primary input for production department should be raw material to start production, but annual target can also be an input.
I am also enclosing a diagram of a tendering process. This diagram has been created using TIBCO. It’s a freeware and can be used for business modeling just like Microsoft Visio.
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