DMAIC Project: Improving the Lead Time for Processing Purchase Orders

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Baseline (Define)

The project examines the processing of purchase orders in an ERP system. The process serves the organisation's sales and end customers by using the purchase order process to ensure the availability of products to customers.
At the start of the project, the purchase order process involved a lot of manual work. Users had to manually perform several steps and change or complete order information. The aim was to improve the process tasks and speed up the lead time and reduce errors caused by manual work.

Process performance at the beginning (Measure)

A lot of variation and scatter was found in the analysis and measurement of the process. This variation was due to differences in the working methods of different users and the inaccuracy and incompleteness of the data entering the process. The initial assumption was that too much time was spent on the process cycle time, but the high number of errors observed in the observations was surprising. Problems with standard deviation and variation were noted in the process.

Improvement measures (Analyze & Improve)

The main causes of the process problems were the lack of input data and the slowness of the process steps. The shortcomings in the input data were addressed by forcing the data to be correct by changing the systems and creating guided automation. These measures are intended to reduce errors later in the process. Other automation was also implemented within the process to eliminate unnecessary steps.

In the improvement phase, different hypotheses and their impact on the expected outcome were examined. Within the process, best practice working methods were disseminated and a continuous improvement model of meetings was introduced.

Results (Control)

The throughput of the purchase order processing process improved significantly (80%). The quality of the information in the baseline improved and previous information gaps were eliminated. Work steps within the process were automated. The process is continuously reviewed with the organisation in standard meetings to identify new areas for further development.

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This project was a Black Belt training project, which the participant did as part of the training and received a Black Belt certificate at the end of the project.

If you are interested in learning how to improve your processes with Lean Six Sigma and obtaining the certification, check out the different options at : Lean Six Sigma trainings.