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Deployment Process Maps
Detailed process maps are very helpful in sequencing vertically discrete operations. Deployment process maps (DPMs), on the other hand, track operations or activities as they move horizontally across several departments in an organization. As one would suspect, this view of a process allows team members to zero in on disconnects between functions that create waste, downtime and non-value-added activities. DPMs are most useful when employed to map enterprise-wide processes as they move across an organization and can include supplier and/or customer activities. As such, DPMs are especially applicable when analyzing global supply chains.Figure 9.3 shows a DPM that has been prepared for the order management process of a Dutch exporter. The exporter is concerned with the amount of time it is taking to process orders, approve customer credit, manufacture the goods, ship, bill and collect money.Figure 9.3: Deployment Process Map for Operating Cycle
The reader may recognize this process as the operating cycle, or the time it takes to sell a product, invoice and collect payment. Because the company in question operates a build-to-order model, the process is mapped from the time a customer places an order through actual collection. Analysis of each department, the steps per department and elapsed time for each step helps a sigma team to identify breakdowns in the process, redundancies and dead time.
The first potential disconnect may be between the order management function and credit approval. A logical question the sigma team may ask is why orders are input into the system before credit approval is sought from another department. Why not have credit approval information available to the order management people before an order is processed? Given that the total time to carry out the two processes is six days, it would certainly be a worthwhile investment of time to answer that question. Once credit is approved, it takes another four days to get the order to the manufacturing department. Conversely, if a customer does not have sufficient credit, notification that the order has been rejected takes an additional three days. In this case, the customer is going to be annoyed not only by the fact that the order was rejected but that it took nine days to find out!If an order is approved, it is sent on to manufacturing, where it takes an average of 45 days to source raw materials, manufacture the order and ship it out. Because of the build-to-order model, it is understandable that this process takes longer than shipping from finished goods inventory. Even so, 45 days seems long, and a detailed process map of the manufacturing process may be called for. Once the order is shipped, it takes another 60 days to bill and collect money.A cursory look at this process would indicate that there are several functions that could be executed simultaneously. Also, it is clear that the functions that take the longest are manufacturing and accounts receivable. As mentioned previously, each of those functions requires a more in-depth analysis using the full Six Sigma tool kit.Without even analyzing each individual function or the myriad handoffs inherent to the process, it appears that the exporter in question has a systems visibility problem. While this obviously requires more study, the use of an enterprise resource planning software suite would allow many of the sequential activities to be done in parallel, with each downstream player (manufacturing, for example) in a position to get moving ahead of time. This ability alone would reduce cycle time by a considerable percentage.DPMs are best utilized when several departments are involved in a process. They are even more powerful when entities outside of an organization have input into the overall quality of output from a process. The ability to capture disconnects between suppliers, a manufacturer and its customers will almost surely reduce cycle time and allow companies to take orders, sell and collect money in a much more expedient fashion. In the example under analysis, if an order is rejected due to credit problems, the customer should be notified immediately, not nine days later. When an order is accepted, the ability to move from an operating cycle of 115 days to 50% of that number is not at all unreasonable.
