Summary of the six-sigma DEFINE stage
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The purpose of the Define phase is to clearly identify the problem, the requirements of the project and the objectives of the project. The objectives of the project should focus on critical issues which are aligned with the company’s business strategy and the customer’s requirements. The Define phase includes:
- define customer requirements as they relate to this project. Explicit customer requirements are called Critical-to-Quality (CTQ) characteristics;
- develop defect definitions as precisely as possible;
- perform a baseline study (a general measure of the level of performance before the improvement project commences);
- create a team charter and Champion;
- estimate the financial impact of the problem; and
- obtain senior management approval of the project
Key questions:
- What matters to the customers?
- What Defect are we trying to reduce?
- By how much?
- By when?
- What is the current cost of defects?
- Who will be in the project team?
- Who will support us to implement this project?
The most applicable tools at this phase are the following:
- Project Charter - this document is intended to clearly describe problems, defect definitions, team information and deliverables for a proposed project and to obtain agreement from key stakeholders.
- Trend Chart - to see (visually) the trend of defect occurrence over a period of time.
- Pareto Chart - to see (visually) how critical each input is in contributing negatively or positively to total output or defects.
- Process Flow Chart - to understand how the current process functions and the flow of steps in current process.
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