Project Selection Guidelines

General Guidelines for Project Selection

Any project should have identifiable process inputs and outputs. A good six sigma project should never have a predetermined solution. If you already know the answer, then just go fix it! For projects that have operator or operator training as an input, focus on ways to reduce operator variation, thereby making your process more robust to different or untrained operators. All projects need to be approached from the perspective of understanding the variation in process inputs, controlling them, and eliminating the defects.

Typical Six Sigma Projects

Project Selection Ideas By Function Finance/Accounting Six Sigma Project Ideas
Reduce the time it takes to close the accounting books (cycle time) Improve the forecast accuracy Control spending over time Reduce balance sheet risk Eliminate unstable customers and associated risks Improve payment processing to vendors/suppliers Improve Days Sales Outstanding (DSO) the average time taken by a company to collect payment from its customers Reduce payroll process cycle time Improve cash management processes Improve payment/collection processes Reduce electronic financial transaction costs Reduce the cycle time of reconciliation Reduce the procure to pay cycle Standardize the accrual and deferral processes

Typical Six Sigma Projects

Sales Six Sigma Project Ideas
Improve cross-sell opportunities Reduce time required to enter sales orders Reduce errors and rework associated with sales orders Reduce customer credit worthiness cycle time Reduce the number of "bad deals" that are processed Improve the cycle time of the entire sales order to cash process Increase repeat orders/customers

Shipping/Receiving Six Sigma Project Ideas

Improve on-time delivery of products to customers Improve on-time delivery of goods to our facility from vendors Improve documentation accuracy Reduce line downtime due to shipping/receiving Improve inventory control/rotation Improve inspection processes

Typical Six Sigma Projects

Human Resources Six Sigma Project Ideas
Reduce the time required to hire an employee Reduce the time to process an insurance claim Improve employee on-boarding and orientation processes Reduce expenditures for recruiting firms Improve timeliness and the value of employee performance reviews Reduce absenteeism Improve training efficiency Improve employee satisfaction Identify and correct retention issues Reduce network/server/application downtime Improve process of logging-in to network from remote locations Improve system reliability/uptime Standardize computer loads for configuration and support productivity improvement

Information Technology

Typical Six Sigma Projects

Product/Service Design Six Sigma Project Ideas
Reduce Reduce Reduce Reduce time required to design a product or service errors in design production time testing time

Call Center Six Sigma Project Ideas

Increase/decrease (depending on your business needs) average talk time Reduce abandon calls Improve employee knowledge Reduce number of times customer is put on hold

Typical Six Sigma Projects

External Defects Audits (customer, regulatory or internal) discovering non-compliance issues Any out of specification (customer, regulatory or internal) output inspection process in your organization Anything you cover for by having a guy in the customer's plant, office or facility Internal Defects Any scrap produced by your processes Any item reworked in a process (sales contracts, invoices, surgeries, software, etc.) Any process with high variation in the product output Any process with high variation in the material consumption Any process with many "hand-offs" between individuals or business groups

Typical Six Sigma Projects

Efficiency/Capacity Issues
Processes producing less than expected Processes requiring overtime not requested by a customer Processes requiring cycle times in excess of expectations Processes with computer/machine downtime Processes requiring expedited shipping and associated costs due to delayed output production Any process that has added labor to make the required cycle Reduce expenses at... Reduce scrap... Reduce downtimes... or increase uptimes... Reduce rework... Increase throughput at... Reduce quality defects...

General Six Sigma Project Ideas