Lean Six Sigma has to start from Voice of Customer: VOC 【Excel Template: VOC Matrix Diagram】
Customer orientation and customer satisfaction are always the starting points for the Lean Six Sigma project. In order to achieve this customer orientation, it is essential to collect “Voice of Customers” (VOC). This article demonstrates the VOC Matrix Diagram for collecting and analyzing VOCs on an Excel template.
(Duration: 4:16)
DOWNLOAD ← Click this to download the “VOC Matrix Diagram” template file.
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Voice Of Customer, VOC is the starting point and the VOC Matrix Diagram.
Hi, this is Mike Negami, Lean Sigma, Black Belt.
I would like to talk today’s theme, the three Lean Sigma characteristics that we must always be aware of during any Lean Sigma activities. Since I can’t explain all three in three minutes, I’ll talk about each one separately in three episodes.
The first characteristic is “Customer-oriented”. All Lean Sigma activities have to start from the customer’s voice and the customer point of view. The term, VOC is often used, which stands for ‘Voice of Customer’. It is used like ‘what is the VOC in this process?’ We have the tools to collect or analyze this VOC in Lean Sigma.
One of them is the VOC matrix diagram. This is an example of that tool. As you can see, we put VOC’s on the light blue column in Column C. ‘Better’, ‘Faster’ and ‘Cheaper’ are written in Column A. Since most VOC’s belong to those three categories, please refer to them.
Then, rate the importance of each VOC from 1 to 5, 5 is the highest, in the next column. Put your company’s department names or other factors that are associated with each VOC in the row in yellow-green. Lastly, put the degree of relationship between each VOC and each relevant department by 1 to 9 in the yellow section. Then, the result is the numbers in the ‘total weighted’ row. In this example, Cafe kitchen has the highest number.
You can download the VOC matrix diagram template from the link below for free. Please give me your feedback after using the template. Thanks.
DOWNLOAD ← Click this to download the “VOC Matrix Diagram” template file.
The idea of Vital Few is very important in Lean Sigma. Instead of dealing with many factors, we should focus on only the few factors that have the most impact on the objective. This example shows that Cafe kitchen is the most important in order to deal with the VOC’s.
From the view of VOC, the Value-added/Non-Value-added analysis
Using the VOC concept in product development or process designing is very common in the manufacturing area. How much improvement do you think we can make in other areas if we apply the VOC concept?
One example is this: The first step at the time of the process analysis is the Value-added/Non-Value-added analysis. Take a look at them one by one for each step of the target process and check if all movement of people, objects and information will contribute to creating value for the customers, which is value-added, or not, which is non-value-added.
Try these two questions in each step:
“Do customers want to pay for this operation?”
“Does this operation produce something that customers want?”
Eliminate as many operations as possible in which the answer is no. This analysis is very simple, but the effect is tremendous. Here is a common experience with this analysis: When I ask for a non-value-added operation “Why do you need to do this operation?” The answer that often comes back is “I took over so and so from the person before.”
Try this value-added & non-value-added analysis on your operations or your people’s operations. You’ll find many surprising things.
I’ve done with this topic for today. The next episode will explain the second Lean Sigma characteristic, “KAIZEN – more than improvement”. Thank you for viewing.
<< Mike’s Comment >>
It’s already been one month since I decided to start this video series.
Since I’d never done this before I had to learn everything from scratch.
How to:
- Film myself and edit videos
- Upload videos onto YouTube
- Deal with SEO
- Set up this blog site
- Set up a bilingual site
There were so many things to learn, but I managed it.
I learned all those things on the Internet, but mostly studied by watching YouTube rather than reading other web sites. I’ve also discovered that learning via online videos has become mainstream nowadays.
Today’s theme is the first episode of the three characteristics series that we must always be aware of during any Lean Sigma activities. It is surprisingly “Customer-oriented”.
Six Sigma is considered to be part of the engineering field, but VOC, Voice of Customer – considered to be part of the sales field – is the very first starting point before anything else in Lean Six Sigma projects. That’s the reason why Lean Six Sigma is growing world-wide. Enjoy the video.
