As anyone who’s been exposed to Six Sigma will know, SIPOCs are a simple description of a process or activity. It is an acronym that goes like this:
- S – Suppliers – who provides the inputs?
- I – Inputs – what are the inputs that get consumed by the process?
- P – Process – what is the process?
- O – Outputs – what are the outputs that get produced or made available by the process?
- C – Customers – who wants the outputs?
It is quickly apparent that one SIPOC’s outputs are another’s inputs. The team performing the process is probably the Customer of the Supplier’s process; and the Supplier of the the Customer’s process.
What if we daisy chain the SIPOCs? What more does this tell us than single SIPOCs shown alone?
