DMAIC stands for Define, Measure, Improve and Control. It is pronounced "DMAKE" and is the fundamental building block for process improvement. DMAIC refer to the sequence of steps followed by lean six sigma improvement teams when seeking to improve industrial processes. Over the years, DMAIC has gain credibility as an improvement method that is easy to apply, suitable for teams and effective at delivering performance improvement. The popularity of DMAIC has led to the adoption of lean six sigma within many companies.
How to apply DMAIC?
DMAIC - Define the improvement opportunity.
It sounds simple but in the heat of a meeting room, defining the opportunity can be difficult. Some people define the symptoms they experience or the factors causing the most aggravation, others define the solution they want. It takes a little thought to make sure your team is discussing the key problem area and agree on what can be achieved.
Depending on the level of enthusiasm and knowledge within your team, everybody may want to share their frustration with the process at the same time, sometimes contradicting each others perspective. There are tools associated with the Define step that help to cut through subjective opinion and focus on facts. Try the "Is / Is not" tool to limit the scope or the "As Is / To Be" mapping to clarify expectations for the team. Lean Six Sigma describes a series of tools that makes it easier to move your team through the different stages of DMAIC. The Lean Six Sigma tools help your team to quickly move from opinions to facts. They help you manage the scope of the project and define the targets for your team.
Take your time and don't rush the DMAIC - define step. It may be hard holding back the team when they have a lot of solution ideas. It may also be the case that the team has no ideas on how to fix the process. In each case, the DMAIC - define step helps ensure the team is focused on the best improvement opportunity. Don't rush this step or your team may invest a lot of time on the wrong issues.
DMAIC - Measure your success.
Taking measurements is often seen as boring and time consuming. It is much more interesting to dive in and look for solutions. However, DMAIC is all about permanent solutions to improvement opportunities. The DMAIC - measurement step makes sure your team is heading in the right direction. Use Critical to Quality trees to establish suitable metrics for your project. Establish how you will measure success and publish these metrics so that all stakeholders agree on how success will be measured. Lean six sigma describes ways of identifying key metrics and setting up valid measurement systems. These tools like the Kano Model help you recognize the measurements that are critical to your success.
Sometimes, teams make progress quickly and stakeholders forget how bad the situation had been. Taking measurements before and after the project means you can calculate the impact of the changes you introduce. Successful change makes it easier to address other improvement opportunities and builds credibility for your application of DMAIC.
Even though Measure is a key part of DMAIC and is the second step addressed by the team, the team manager should not delay analysis until the measure step is complete. Teams can become despondent while waiting for the perfect measurement system. Don't loose the early enthusiasm and ideas because of the focus on measurements. The measure step can overlap with other steps in the DMAIC improvement cycle.
DMAIC - Analyze & find the root causes
Now the team is very clear on what is required. They can focus their energy and share their process knowledge to find the root causes of process issues. Lean six sigma tools like value-stream maps help the team to spot areas for improvement. Techniques like 5 whys and cause & effect analysis help the team to find the sources of the problem. Process capability studies help the teams understand the capabilities of the process and decide on an improvement strategy.
The DMAIC - Analyze step takes time and may require some experimentation on the process. The best analysis involves cross-functional teams working together for a common goal. The team should include people who work directly with the process. They have first hand process experience that can be invaluable to the team.
DMAIC - Improve the process
When the team has successfully completed the define, measure and analyze steps they have gained a lot of knowledge about the process. Very often I hear team members talk about how the process is easier to understand after spending time on define, measure and analyze steps. This process knowledge makes it easier to find solutions. Teams should also use other lean six sigma tools to help them find solutions, tools like FMEA or benchmarking help teams spot the solutions that deliver real performance improvements.
The DMAIC - improve step is about picking the best solutions. Lean six sigma encourages the team to evaluate all possible solutions and focus on those that deliver the biggest improvements for the least risk. This approach tends to guarantee robust solutions and maximize the gain in process performance.
DMAIC - Control the process
The final step of DMAIC is control and it focuses on making sure the gains from the improvement project are permanent. You don't want to be back in a year’s time trying to fix the same process issues for a second time. The improvements should be ingrained into the fabric of the process; it should be easier to adhere to the new changes than revert to the old ways!
The DMAIC - control step integrates the new improvements into the process by including them in process documentation and when necessary, auditing the process to ensure adherence to changes. The control step also uses lean six sigma tools like the process control chart to describe critical process metrics and how they are managed. Statistical process control charts help to monitor the process and alert process owners when performance changes.
DMAIC projects
The DMAIC improvement cycle is proven to reduce costs, improve quality and minimize process errors. It can put you in control of your process by helping your team understand the factors that need to be improved. DMAIC is the improvement cycle for lean six sigma projects. If you want to learn about applying DMAIC for process improvement, take the Lean Six Sigma Yellow Belt training course and start applying DMAIC today. Our lean six sigma Yellow Belt training course and lean six sigma software help you get up to speed on DMAIC - quickly! It’s all online so you can start now.
