Control Phase

14 March 2017 08:51 PM

Case Study: Why a Team Cannot Afford to Overlook the C in

DMAIC
The managers of a lockbox operation in the upper Midwest were not at all pleased. The corporate clients for whom they processed millions of dollars in
payments were very intolerant of errors. Yet in the first months of a new quality improvement effort, the error rate per 100,000 transactions doubled from 15
to 30. Truth be told, the increase in errors was perception, not reality. Errors had always been worse than believed. And now improved data collection was
showing that the process performance was below expectations (see figure below).

Process Out of Control Limits

It was fortunate that actions launched in the Improve phase of DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) project quickly brought the rate back
to 20. Unfortunately, even that rate was far from the target of 7.5 errors per 100,000 transactions an industry benchmark for best-in-class performance.

The Six Sigma project team working on the problem was not finished, however. Though many teams skip through Control doing the bare minimum to
document results, this teams Black Belt encouraged them to give Control their full attention. The teams work was guided by two questions: What can we
do to maintain what weve already put in place? and What can we do to build continuous improvement into our processes? The actions the team took had
surprising and welcome results. Heres a quick look at what the team did.

Maintaining Gains
When the team had first started in the Measure phase, it was surprised to learn just how much worse the error rate was than anyone thought. When the
team reached Control, it was determined to find ways to help everyone in the department monitor exactly what was going on. The team developed and
implemented standard operating procedures (SOPs) for collecting and displaying data on error rates (including a new set of standard control charts to be
maintained by department supervisors).

When reviewing the results from the full-scale implementation of the new procedures it had developed in Improve, the team noticed something else. There
was a big gap between the error rates of top performers and poor performers. The gap was there before any changes were made and continued afterwards,
so obviously the teams original plans had not addressed that problem. To address this gap, the team undertook a major effort to raise everyone in the
department to the level of top performers. Their countermeasures included:

Documenting best practices among the top performers

Revising the SOPs based on that knowledge
Training everyone on the new SOPs, with special attention paid to the poor performers
Collecting data on an ongoing basis to see if the error rate improved further
The team also had discovered that one reason for delays in processing was the irregular-but-frequent breakdown of the machines and printers. So a third
major thrust of the Control phase was to develop SOPs for preventive maintenance, identifying who would be responsible for those procedures and training
them.

Doing the Groundwork for Continuous Improvement

One approach the team took that proved highly successful was working with department supervisors to develop SOPs that would make the corrective
actions an integral part of how work was done. So the team not only,

Initiated new methods for collecting and displaying data, it provided a process for developing data collection measures.
Helped improve the performance of people who had been performing poorly, it established triggers that in the future would alert supervisors when someone
exceeded acceptable error rates (an early warning system) and recommended actions on how to deal with the situation.
Captured current best practices, it identified how to know when a new best practice appeared and how to take advantage of it.
In short, the team developed a set of super SOPs that helped establish new management practices in the division.

All of the new SOPs were built into a documented control plan that listed each major step in the process, its quality goal (specification), measurement
method for tracking performance against the spec, and recommended corrective actions if and when a problem appeared. (See excerpt of the plan in table
below.)

Control Plan
Process/ Characterist CTQ Specification/ Measure/ Sample/ Frequen Who/ Where/ Decision/ Ruler/
Process Steps ic/ Requirement Method Size cy Measure Recorded Corrective Action
Parameter s
Processing
PO delivers Properly C-I Zero pounds of Pounds of mail 100% Daily Mailroom Mail log and Return mail and review
mail delivered improperly delivered to be returned PO scorecard quarterly with
mail mail scorecard PO
Process Special C-E No SLAs missed due Compare to 100% Daily Coordinat Special Monitor specials through
incoming package to unprocessed agreed service or tracking log processing and expedite
special SLAs special packages level times work
packages
Fine sorting Sort mail C-I No mis-sorted mail in Manual Ad hoc Daily per Inspector In-line edit Mail placed in proper coop
mail coops inspection shift log and mis-sorted charged to
offender
Distribution of Unprocesse C-E No mail in coops 100% Daily per Superviso Zero deposit Unprocessed work found:
work to d mail shift r report expedited. If none found,
modules supervisor signs report.

Managements Role
Project team members alone could not tell coworkers that data on their individual performance was going to be posted in the work area. Or tell their own
supervisor about changes they wanted to make to his or her job description. The kinds of changes that often accompany Control directly impinge on how
people do their jobs. If approached poorly, the result is ruffled feathers at best, or outright hostility at worst. That is why it is critical that local management be

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people do their jobs. If approached poorly, the result is ruffled feathers at best, or outright hostility at worst. That is why it is critical that local management be
involved in Control measures, minimally through vocal support and ideally through participation.

In this company, for example, the management team took the control plan from this Six Sigma project team very seriously. Supervisors were involved in
developing the new SOPs. Management played a critical role in communicating the need for these measures, and establishing the expectation that this is
how work is going to be done here from now on.

Results Do Not Go Unnoticed

In the months during and following this teams Control work, the error rate in the lockbox operation reached an historic low point just 8 errors per 100,000
transactions. The group has continued to maintain that low rate. Better still, the results of the teams work did not go unnoticed. A large corporate customer
looking for lockbox services picked this bank over a competitor primarily because of the control plan. The documentation and rigorous use of continuous
improvement demonstrated to the customer that this bank cared about quality and was constantly working to improve

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