Also called SIPOC diagram, high-level process map
What is a SIPOC?
A one-page summary of a process on five headings - suppliers, inputs, process, outputs, customers - used to agree what you are talking about before anybody maps the detail.
What else it is called
- Other names
- SIPOC diagram, high-level process map
- In French
- SIPOC
Related entries
Understanding suppliers, inputs, process, outputs, customers
A SIPOC is filled in across five columns. Suppliers are whoever provides what you need, inside the company or outside it. Inputs are what they provide. Process is the work itself, deliberately summarized to five or seven steps. Outputs are what comes out. Customers are whoever receives those outputs, which again may be the next department rather than somebody who pays.
It comes out of Six Sigma, where it is the first thing filled in during the define phase, and it takes twenty minutes rather than a day. That is the point of it. The cost of mapping a process in detail and then discovering that two people in the room disagreed about where it ended is a wasted afternoon, and this is the cheap thing that prevents it.
It is also the right place to notice that your process starts later than you thought. Teams routinely draw the first step as the moment work arrives on their desk, when the delay they are trying to fix happened before that.
In practice
Fill one in for handling a customer complaint and the argument starts immediately at the last column, because half the room thinks the customer is the customer and the other half thinks it is the auditor who reads the corrective action in March. Both are right, and that is worth knowing before anybody draws anything.
Frequently asked
Is a SIPOC the same as a process map?
No. A SIPOC is a boundary sketch on one page with the process reduced to a handful of steps, used to agree scope. A process map is the detailed sequence that follows it. Doing the SIPOC first is what stops the detailed map being drawn around the wrong beginning and end.
How long should a SIPOC take?
Twenty or thirty minutes with the people who do the work. If it is taking an afternoon, the process being described is too big and should be split.