How Toyota Turns Workers Into Problem Solvers

Sarah Jane Johnston: Why study Toyota? With all the books and articles on Toyota, lean manufacturing, just-in-time, kanban systems, quality systems, etc. that came out in the 1980s and 90s, hasn't the topic been exhausted?

Steven Spear: Well, this has been a much-researched area. When Kent Bowen and I first did a literature search, we found nearly 3,000 articles and books had been published on some of the topics you just mentioned.

However, there was an apparent discrepancy. There had been this wide, long-standing recognition of Toyota as the premier automobile manufacturer in terms of the unmatched combination of high quality, low cost, short lead-time and flexible production. And Toyota's operating system—the Toyota Production System—had been widely credited for Toyota's sustained leadership in manufacturing performance. Furthermore, Toyota had been remarkably open in letting outsiders study its operations. The American Big Three and many other auto companies had done major benchmarking studies, and they and other companies had tried to implement their own forms of the Toyota Production System. There is the Ford Production System, the Chrysler Operating System, and General Motors went so far as to establish a joint venture with Toyota called NUMMI, approximately fifteen years ago.

However, despite Toyota's openness and the genuinely honest efforts by other companies over many years to emulate Toyota, no one had yet matched Toyota in terms of having simultaneously high-quality, low-cost, short lead-time, flexible production over time and broadly based across the system.

It was from observations such as these that Kent and I started to form the impression that despite all the attention that had already been paid to Toyota, something critical was being missed. Therefore, we approached people at Toyota to ask what they did that others might have missed.

Q: What did they say?

A: To paraphrase one of our contacts, he said, "It's not that we don't want to tell you what TPS is, it's that we can't. We don't have adequate words for it. But, we can show you what TPS is."

Over about a four-year period, they showed us how work was actually done in practice in dozens of plants. Kent and I went to Toyota plants and those of suppliers here in the U.S. and in Japan and directly watched literally hundreds of people in a wide variety of roles, functional specialties, and hierarchical levels. I personally was in the field for at least 180 working days during that time and even spent one week at a non-Toyota plant doing assembly work and spent another five months as part of a Toyota team that was trying to teach TPS at a first-tier supplier in Kentucky.

Q: What did you discover?

A: We concluded that Toyota has come up with a powerful, broadly applicable answer to a fundamental managerial problem. The products we consume and the services we use are typically not the result of a single person's effort. Rather, they come to us through the collective effort of many people each doing a small part of the larger whole. To a certain extent, this is because of the advantages of specialization that Adam Smith identified in pin manufacturing as long ago as 1776 in The Wealth of Nations. However, it goes beyond the economies of scale that accrue to the specialist, such as skill and equipment focus, setup minimization, etc.

The products and services characteristic of our modern economy are far too complex for any one person to understand how they work. It is cognitively overwhelming. Therefore, organizations must have some mechanism for decomposing the whole system into sub-system and component parts, each "cognitively" small or simple enough for individual people to do meaningful work. However, decomposing the complex whole into simpler parts is only part of the challenge. The decomposition must occur in concert with complimentary mechanisms that reintegrate the parts into a meaningful, harmonious whole.

This common yet nevertheless challenging problem is obviously evident when we talk about the design of complex technical devices. Automobiles have tens of thousands of mechanical and electronic parts. Software has millions and millions of lines of code. Each system can require scores if not hundreds of person-work-years to be designed. No one person can be responsible for the design of a whole system. No one is either smart enough or long-lived enough to do the design work single handedly.

Furthermore, we observe that technical systems are tested repeatedly in prototype forms before being released. Why? Because designers know that no matter how good their initial efforts, they will miss the mark on the first try. There will be something about the design of the overall system structure or architecture, the interfaces that connect components, or the individual components themselves that need redesign. In other words, to some extent the first try will be wrong, and the organization designing a complex system needs to design, test, and improve the system in a way that allows iterative congruence to an acceptable outcome.

The same set of conditions that affect groups of people engaged in collaborative product design affect groups of people engaged in the collaborative production and delivery of goods and services. As with complex technical systems, there would be cognitive overload for one person to design, test-in-use, and improve the work systems of factories, hotels, hospitals, or agencies as reflected in (a) the structure of who gets what good, service, or information from whom, (b) the coordinative connections among people so that they can express reliably what they need to do their work and learn what others need from them, and (c) the individual work activities that create intermediate products, services, and information. In essence then, the people who work in an organization that produces something are simultaneously engaged in collaborative production and delivery and are also engaged in a collaborative process of self-reflective design, "prototype testing," and improvement of their own work systems amidst changes in market needs, products, technical processes, and so forth.

It is our conclusion that Toyota has developed a set of principles, Rules-in-Use we've called them, that allow organizations to engage in this (self-reflective) design, testing, and improvement so that (nearly) everyone can contribute at or near his or her potential, and when the parts come together the whole is much, much greater than the sum of the parts.

Q: What are these rules?

A:We've seen that consistently—across functional roles, products, processes (assembly, equipment maintenance and repair, materials logistics, training, system redesign, administration, etc.), and hierarchical levels (from shop floor to plant manager and above) that in TPS managed organizations the design of nearly all work activities, connections among people, and pathways of connected activities over which products, services, and information take form are specified-in-their-design, tested-with-their-every-use, and improved close in time, place, and person to the occurrence of every problem.

Q: That sounds pretty rigorous.

A:It is, but consider what the Toyota people are attempting to accomplish. They are saying before you (or you all) do work, make clear what you expect to happen (by specifying the design), each time you do work, see that what you expected has actually occurred (by testing with each use), and when there is a difference between what had actually happened and what was predicted, solve problems while the information is still fresh.

Q: That reminds me of what my high school lab science teacher required.

A: Exactly! This is a system designed for broad based, frequent, rapid, low-cost learning. The "Rules" imply a belief that we may not get the right solution (to work system design) on the first try, but that if we design everything we do as a bona fide experiment, we can more rapidly converge, iteratively, and at lower cost, on the right answer, and, in the process, learn a heck of lot more about the system we are operating.

Q: You say in your article that the Toyota system involves a rigorous and methodical problem-solving approach that is made part of everyone's work and is done under the guidance of a teacher. How difficult would it be for companies to develop their own program based on the Toyota model?

A: Your question cuts right to a critical issue. We discussed earlier the basic problem that for complex systems, responsibility for design, testing, and improvement must be distributed broadly. We've observed that Toyota, its best suppliers, and other companies that have learned well from Toyota can confidently distribute a tremendous amount of responsibility to the people who actually do the work, from the most senior, expeirenced member of the organization to the most junior. This is accomplished because of the tremendous emphasis on teaching everyone how to be a skillful problem solver.

Q: How do they do this?

A: They do this by teaching people to solve problems by solving problems. For instance, in our paper we describe a team at a Toyota supplier, Aisin. The team members, when they were first hired, were inexperienced with at best an average high school education. In the first phase of their employment, the hurdle was merely learning how to do the routine work for which they were responsible. Soon thereafter though, they learned how to immediately identify problems that occurred as they did their work. Then they learned how to do sophisticated root-cause analysis to find the underlying conditions that created the symptoms that they had experienced. Then they regularly practiced developing counter-measures—changes in work, tool, product, or process design—that would remove the underlying root causes.

Q: Sounds impressive.

A: Yes, but frustrating. They complained that when they started, they were "blissful in their ignorance." But after this sustained development, they could now see problems, root down to their probable cause, design solutions, but the team members couldn't actually implement these solutions. Therefore, as a final round, the team members received training in various technical crafts—one became a licensed electrician, another a machinist, another learned some carpentry skills.

Q: Was this unique?

A: Absolutely not. We saw the similar approach repeated elsewhere. At Taiheiyo, another supplier, team members made sophisticated improvements in robotic welding equipment that reduced cost, increased quality, and won recognition with an award from the Ministry of Environment. At NHK (Nippon Spring) another team conducted a series of experiments that increased quality, productivity, and efficiency in a seat production line.

Q: What is the role of the manager in this process?

A: Your question about the role of the manager gets right to the heart of the difficulty of managing this way. For many people, it requires a profound shift in mind-set in terms of how the manager envisions his or her role. For the team at Aisin to become so skilled as problem solvers, they had to be led through their training by a capable team leader and group leader. The team leader and group leader were capable of teaching these skills in a directed, learn-by-doing fashion, because they too were consistently trained in a similar fashion by their immediate senior. We found that in the best TPS-managed plants, there was a pathway of learning and teaching that cascaded from the most senior levels to the most junior. In effect, the needs of people directly touching the work determined the assistance, problem solving, and training activities of those more senior. This is a sharp contrast, in fact a near inversion, in terms of who works for whom when compared with the more traditional, centralized command and control system characterized by a downward diffusion of work orders and an upward reporting of work status.

Q: And if you are hiring a manager to help run this system, what are the attributes of the ideal candidate?

A: We observed that the best managers in these TPS managed organizations, and the managers in organizations that seem to adopt the Rules-in-Use approach most rapidly are humble but also self-confident enough to be great learners and terrific teachers. Furthermore, they are willing to subscribe to a consistent set of values.

Q: How do you mean?

A: Again, it is what is implied in the guideline of specifying every design, testing with every use, and improving close in time, place, and person to the occurrence of every problem. If we do this consistently, we are saying through our action that when people come to work, they are entitled to expect that they will succeed in doing something of value for another person. If they don't succeed, they are entitled to know immediately that they have not. And when they have not succeeded, they have the right to expect that they will be involved in creating a solution that makes success more likely on the next try. People who cannot subscribe to these ideas—neither in their words nor in their actions—are not likely to manage effectively in this system.

Q: That sounds somewhat high-minded and esoteric.

A: I agree with you that it strikes the ear as sounding high principled but perhaps not practical. However, I'm fundamentally an empiricist, so I have to go back to what we have observed. In organizations in which managers really live by these Rules, either in the Toyota system or at sites that have successfully transformed themselves, there is a palpable, positive difference in the attitude of people that is coupled with exceptional performance along critical business measures such as quality, cost, safety, and cycle time.

Q: Have any other research projects evolved from your findings?

A: We titled the results of our initial research "Decoding the DNA of the Toyota Production System." Kent and I are reasonably confident that the Rules-in-Use about which we have written are a successful decoding. Now, we are trying to "replicate the DNA" at a variety of sites. We want to know where and when these Rules create great value, and where they do, how they can be implemented most effectively.

Since we are empiricists, we are conducting experiments through our field research. We are part of a fairly ambitious effort at Alcoa to develop and deploy the Alcoa Business System, ABS. This is a fusion of Alcoa's long standing value system, which has helped make Alcoa the safest employer in the country, with the Rules in Use. That effort has been going on for a number of years, first with the enthusiastic support of Alcoa's former CEO, Paul O'Neill, now Secretary of the Treasury (not your typical retirement, eh?) and now with the backing of Alain Belda, the company's current head. There have been some really inspirational early results in places as disparate as Hernando, Mississippi and Poces de Caldas, Brazil and with processes as disparate as smelting, extrusion, die design, and finance.

We also started creating pilot sites in the health care industry. We started our work with a "learning unit" at Deaconess-Glover Hospital in Needham, not far from campus. We've got a series of case studies that captures some of the learnings from that effort. More recently, we've established pilot sites at Presbyterian and South Side Hospitals, both part of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. This work is part of a larger, comprehensive effort being made under the auspices of the Pittsburgh Regional Healthcare Initiative, with broad community support, with cooperation from the Centers for Disease Control, and with backing from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Also, we've been testing these ideas with our students: Kent in the first year Technology and Operations Management class for which he is course head, me in a second year elective called Running and Growing the Small Company, and both of us in an Executive Education course in which we participate called Building Competitive Advantage Through Operations.

What is Six Sigma?

The Six Sigma approach identifies and eliminates defects with a structured, data-driven, problem-solving method of using rigorous data-gathering and statistical analysis. The statistical representation of Six Sigma describes quantitatively how a process is performing. To achieve Six Sigma, a process must not produce more than 3.4 defects per million opportunities. A Six Sigma defect is defined as anything outside of customer specifications.

Six Sigma differs from traditional quality improvement programs in its focus on input variables. While traditional process improvement methods depend upon measuring outputs and establishing control plans to shield customers from organizational defects, a Six Sigma program demands that problems be addressed at the input root cause level, thereby eliminating the need for unnecessary inspection and rework processes.

THREE KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF SIX SIGMA

Leadership Commitment

Achieving Six Sigma is not easy – it requires serious commitment in the form of time, effort, and resources. For a company to be successful, such commitment must come first from the top executive leadership of the organization and must be practiced by everyone.

Managing Decisions with Data

It is not enough to run a business based on one's experience or "tribal knowledge." Decisions must be based on data versus the typical "I think", "I feel", or "In my opinion" practices that often exist today. With the maturation of the information economy, data is available to virtually everyone in the organization, along with the tools for analyzing that data. Properly using data to Measure, Analyze, Improve, and Control performance forms the foundation of the Six Sigma methodology.

Training and Cultural Change

Improved performance does not and will not happen automatically. High-caliber training is required. Disciplined implementation must follow, and people at all levels have to change the way they go about doing their jobs. In short, new ways of thinking, communicating, and operating must pervade the entire organization. You also need a methodology. DMAIC and DFSS provide a structured problem solving roadmap and tools towards obtaining the results you expect.

Full Six Sigma Deployment

The core elements of implementing Six Sigma – training for Black Belts, Green Belts, Yellow Belts, Ground School, Master Black Belt, Leading Six Sigma, RADD and Senior Executive Six Sigma – to deliver Six Sigma skills throughout your organization.

Black Belt Certification Options
The Black Belt is a key change agent for the Six Sigma process. Typically the "best of the best," these individuals lead teams working on chronic issues that are negatively impacting the company’s performance.

Black Belt Certification takes candidates through a proven, step-by-step training course based on the transfer of knowledge and process skills that lead to improved customer satisfaction, increased profit margins, shortened cycle times and reduced costs. Courses are designed to include sophisticated adult learning theory and no-nonsense evaluation of learning success, while constructing the framework for true cultural change within an organization.

Typically, the entire Black Belt training investment can be justified by results from the first project. The median return on each Qualtec trained Black Belt is $100,000 per project.

Champion Training
The Champion will acquire the skills and tools to select projects, implement improvements, execute control, and alleviate roadblocks to success in the deployment of Six Sigma.

The Champion will acquire the skills and tools to select projects, implement improvements, execute control, and alleviate roadblocks to success. The goal of this training is to increase your knowledge of the Champion roles and responsibilities to effectively lead a team of Black Belts. As a Champion, you will learn to identify the elements of a well-written business case as well as learn the importance of project selection. Finally, you will learn about the tools used to complete successful projects as well as your responsibilities throughout the DMAIC process.

Your Champion Will Learn and Understand:

• Six Sigma as a Methodology and it's Tools

  Champion roles and responsibilities

  The Typical Roadmap

  Project Selection and the Charter

  Black Belt Deliverables

  The Management Skills Needed To Lead Change

Design for Six Sigma (DFSS)
Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is a rigorous approach to designing products and services to meet customer expectations.

Design For Six Sigma Overview

Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) is a rigorous approach to designing products and services to meet customer expectations. Companies implementing Six Sigma find that many defects are actually created during the design process. DFSS facilitates a redesign of processes – factoring in manufacturing and transactional capabilities from the very beginning – and ensures that end products are “producible” using existing technology. Additionally, DFSS integrates the engineering and process design functions enabling concurrent product and process design, thereby eliminating defects before they can occur.

Integrating the principles of MAIC (Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) with design tools and the IDEaS™ (Initiate, Design, Execute and Sustain process), the result is product designs that consistently meet Six Sigma standards – from inception.

Green Belt Training
This course is designed to enhance technical problem solving skills in line managers. Participants will successfully complete a project while completing the classroom portion of the training.

Six Sigma Qualtec’s Manufacturing Green Belt Certification Training provides the analytical tools and hard skills to bring results in the manufacturing environment. With a proven track record of thousands of Green Belts certified worldwide, SSQ instructors provide focused training, emphasizing application of skills learned in classroom sessions, combined with a “real world” project.

The Program

Green Belt Certification takes candidates through a proven, step-by-step training course based on the transfer of knowledge and process skills that leads to improved project results through support of Black Belt initiatives and enhanced technical problem solving skills. Courses are designed to include sophisticated adult learning theory and no-nonsense evaluation of learning success, while supporting the framework for true cultural change within an organization.

Manufacturing Green Belt Certification is a 6-8 week course involving 11 days of classroom training. Classroom training consists of 3 modules, each followed by 2-3 week periods of “real world” project-driven applications in the workplace.
Qualtec pioneered the concept of project support between each phase of Green Belt training and currently enjoys the reputation of being the best in the industry in this critical area. It is in the application of the classroom-derived knowledge that true learning takes place. Because organizations have different needs, Qualtec has designed three options for onsite support of Green Belts during the Workplace Project Application phase.

Master Black Belt (MBB)
As a leader, the MBB will have responsibility for overseeing projects with multiple Black Belt and Green Belt participation that will significantly change the way the organization does business.

MBB candidates will mentor several individuals who are working on Six Sigma projects or other problem solving efforts. Six Sigma Qualtec’s instructors evaluate their mentoring abilities using defined criteria to measure the breadth and development of these skills. A positive evaluation will earn the candidate a mentorship certification.

Advanced Study

MBB candidates must complete at last three of the following:

• Design for Six Sigma - DFSS
• Leveraging Customer Intelligence –VOC and QFD
• Lean Training
• Advanced Topics –DOE and Statistics
• Advanced Transactional Skill Set
• Successful Mentoring

Eight Basics of Lean Six Sigma for Manufacturing Firms

By William H. Gaw

In the efforts to draw closer to customers, many manufacturers have lost focus on what should be a company's primary success factor – profitable growth. In today's competitive manufacturing environment, it takes more than quick fixes, outsourcing and downsizing for companies to consistently achieve their growth and profit objectives. While these options may yield temporary financial relief, they will not lead the way to long-term growth and profitability. For companies to grow and consistently exceed bottom line expectations, they need to get lean. And to get lean they should master eight basics of Lean Six Sigma.

Software as the Solution

During the last 30 years, companies were led to believe that computerized systems would provide the solution to all growth and profit challenges. Material requirements planning (MRP) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) system gurus assured organizations that if that implemented their software programs the bottom line would take care of itself. Well it did not happen. Like most perceived panaceas, each of these programs received a lot of hype, but, in general, contributed little toward helping companies identify and achieve their full growth and profit potential.

For a measure of their shortcomings, one needs only to spend some time in an MRP scheduled manufacturing facility – especially during the last weeks of the final financial quarter. In a typical company, converting the quarterly financial forecast into reality still requires overtime, internal/external expediting, last minute "on-the-run" product changes and even some "smoke and mirrors" from time to time. Results are scrap, rework and warranty costs that negatively impact profitability and quality, and shipment problems that deliver less than acceptable customer satisfaction. Companies have spent many thousands of dollars in pursuing MRP and ERP only to see growth and profits decline due to uncontrolled operating costs that produced non-competitive pricing.

So, after introducing such computer systems, why is it that many businesses are still struggling to sustain profitable growth and are not close to achieving their full growth and profit potential? The first reason is simple – the results achieved by any computer system are only as good as the people at the controls and the integrity of the data they provide. The second is more complex – most manufacturing managers facing major day-to-day problems and constraints adopt a totally reactive management style. Consequently, their time is consumed applying "Band-Aids" and/or finding ways to work around system and process problems. That leaves them little or no time to analyze and eliminate the root causes of ineffective systems and processes.

How to Get to Root Causes

How does one turn around such a classic cart-before-the-horse situation? What is required first is a company-wide, in-depth understanding of the fundamentals of Six Sigma and then a total commitment to the consistent and tenacious execution of eight basics of Lean Six Sigma.

Like renowned football coach Vince Lombardi, who achieved success by having his team focus on the mastery of football basics, manufacturing teams need to focus on the mastery of the Lean manufacturing basics. These basics require proactive planning and tenacious execution that demands leadership above and beyond just satisfying day-to-day accountabilities. Some managers cannot envision the benefits of mastering manufacturing basics. Others simply cannot find the time. Like practicing blocking and tackling in football, it is not exciting. And like most football heroes, managers prefer to run with the ball. But without the solid execution of Lean Six Sigma basics, companies will seldom achieve their full growth and profit potentials. Here are the eight basics of Lean Six Sigma which every manager should know and implement:

1. Information Integrity: It is not uncommon for front office management to become disenchanted with computerized systems results when time schedules and promised paybacks are not achieved. It is a given that acceptable systems results cannot be achieved when systems are driven by inaccurate data and untimely, uncontrolled documentation.

2. Performance Management: Measurement systems can be motivational or de-motivational. The individual goal-setting of the 1980s is a good example of de-motivational measurement – it tested one individual or group against the other and while satisfying some individual egos, it provided little contribution to overall company growth and profit. Today, the balanced scorecard is the choice of business winners.

3. Sequential Production: It takes more than systems sophistication for manufacturing companies to gain control of factory operations. To achieve on-time shipments at healthy profit margins, companies need to replace obsolete shop scheduling methodology with the simplicity of sequential production. Manufacturing leaders have replaced their shop order "launch and expedite" methodology with continuous production lines that are supported by real-time, visual material supply chainsequential production. The assertion that sequential production only works in high production, widget-manufacturing environments is a myth.

4. Point-of-Use Logistics: Material handling and storage are two of manufacturing's high cost, non-value-added activities. The elimination of the stock room, as it is known today, should be a strategic objective of all manufacturers. Moving production parts and components from the stockroom to their production point of use is truly a return to basics and a significant cost reducer.

5. Cycle Time Management: Long cycle times are symptoms of poor manufacturing performance and high non-value-added costs. Manufacturers need to focus on the continuous reduction of all cycle times. Achieving success requires a specific management style that focuses on root cause, proactive problem solving, rather than "fire-fighting."

6. Production Linearity: Companies will never achieve their full profit potential if they produce more than 25 percent of their monthly shipment plan in the last week of the month or more than 33 percent of their quarterly shipment plan in the last month of the quarter. How linear does a production department produce to the company's master schedule? As companies struggle to remain competitive, one of the strategies by which gains in speed, quality and costs can be achieved is to form teams of employees to pursue and achieve linear production.

7. Resource Planning: One of the major challenges in industry today is the timely right sizing of operations. Profit margins can be eroded by not taking timely downsizing actions, and market windows can be missed and customers lost by not upsizing the direct labor force in a timely manner. These actions demand timely, tough decisions that require accurate, well-timed and reliable resource information.

8. Customer Satisfaction: Customer satisfaction is in the eyes of – surprise! – the customer. Perceptions are what a company needs to address when it comes to improving customer satisfaction. It does no good to have the best products and services if the customer's perception of "as received" quality and service is unsatisfactory. Companies need to plan and implement proactive projects that breakdown the communication barriers that create invalid customer perceptions.

Answer Is in Six Sigma Basics

While many business gurus may have identified one or more of these Six Sigma basics as important to the successful pursuit of business excellence, the fundamental importance of these basics seems to have been lost in the proliferation of buzz words and the mania of systems sophistication. It is time for companies to put a hold on sophisticated systems development that cause self-inflicted, day-to-day chaos. In its place, they should initiate an action learning program for gaining a company-wide understanding and acceptance of the importance of the basics of Six Sigma. Once buy-in and commitment have been achieved, aggressive planning and tenacious implementation must follow. In short, that is putting "horse in front of the cart." And such a program will build a solid foundation for redefining and revitalizing a company's pursuit of profitable growth.

About the Author: William H. Gaw is a former manufacturing executive with four successful business turnarounds to his credit. He also is the author of six tutorials and seven training modules aimed at helping companies realize their potential via manufacturing cost reduction. He is a graduate of Milwaukee School of Engineering and has earned professional certifications from both the Society of Manufacturing Engineers and the American Production and Inventory Society. He also served at an associate professor at San Diego State University. He can be reached at bg@bbasicsllc.com.

Practical Guide to Creating Better Looking Process Maps

By Hussain Thameezdeen Abubakker

Process mapping is one of the basic quality or process improvement tools used in Lean Six Sigma. It has acquired more importance in recent times, given the complexities of processes and the need to capture and visualize knowledge that resides with the people who perform the task. Often process mapping is looked at as an exercise in drawing some boxes and arrows and then filling up the boxes with a few words. This commonly results in process maps that run into many pages, making it very difficult to read and understand and that take too much time to modify. Some basic rules can be applied to creating process maps that make them easier to understand and use.

Since the aim here is how to make a process map look better (not how to create one), the explanation of the standard notations to be used for creating a process map and the different ways in which a process map can be used are not discussed in detail. However, a few standard notations are indicated for context. Also, the assumption is that PowerPoint is being used for process mapping. However, most of the tips discussed could easily be translated to other software such as Visio. The reader needs only to understand the spirit of these recommendations.

Basic Symbols to Be Used

Most of the standards use the symbols in Figure 1 to create a process map. The start and end symbols indicate the start and end points in the map. Rectangular boxes are used to indicate process steps and diamonds are used for decisions. Decisions usually have two branches – one for yes and another for no, indicated by Y and N respectively. Circles with a letter or letters are used as page connectors, i.e., if a process spills over onto another page, then a page connector is connected to the last process step in the first page and the first process step in the next page with the same letter. Database and physical document are indicated as shown.

Figure 1: Symbols to Be Used

Selecting Better Connecting Arrows

The first step in drawing a process map is to select a connecting arrow to connect the boxes (process steps) and diamonds (decision boxes). For connecting boxes, use elbow arrow connectors (Figure 2). These can be found in the AutoShapes tab at the drawing tool bar at the bottom of the PowerPoint application. If the drawing toolbar is not visible, it can be made visible by selecting View > Toolbars > Drawing. An inefficient way to connect the boxes and one of the most common mistakes is to use simple arrows available in the same drawing tool bar. The advantage of using an elbow arrow connector over a simple arrow is that the simple arrows do not redraw themselves as the boxes are moved around, whereas elbow arrow connectors do.

Figure 2: Select Elbow Arrow Connectors (Left), Not Incorrect Arrows (Right)

Drawing Better Text Boxes

The boxes are drawn using the text box tool (Figure 3). The most common pitfall in drawing boxes is to pick up a rectangle and insert a text box without a border. It is better to use the text box with border or rectangle without text box. Good results can be achieved by choosing Arial as the font and 10 point as the font size. Also, ensure that word wrapping is on (Word Wrap Text in AutoShapes is checked on the tab of Text Box within the format Text Box Option). All four internal margin settings should be set to zero on the same tab. These settings are applicable for diamonds (decision boxes) as well.

Figure 3: Draw Boxes with Text Box Tool (Left), Not Rectangle Tool (Right)

Use crisp language, especially on diamonds, which usually take more space than text boxes. For example: "Is customer caught in the sanctions list?" can be worded as "Customer in the sanctions list?" Move additional lines of text that describe the process step in more detail to a footnote. This will help reduce the number of letters within the text box or diamond, making it easier to reduce its size. The objective is to reduce the percentage of the paper area that is printed. The less print impressions, the more readable the page.

Improving the Layout of the Page

Figure 4: Swim Lanes

Try to keep the text box size the same across the slide and align all of them (through imaginary lanes both horizontal and vertical). To achieve this, the check box on the tab named Text Box with a heading of Resize AutoShapes to fit text has to be unchecked. This will enable increasing or decreasing the size of the text box irrespective of the text inside. Center items within the "swim lanes." A swim lane is usually the banded area that runs horizontally across a process map (Figure 4). 　

It is used to denote the area of responsibility for a particular role/department, i.e., all the process steps within a swim lane are owned and performed by that particular role or department. Try to keep closer those swim lanes that havethe greatest number of the interactions with each other. Avoid using names of individuals on process maps. People may come and go; roles remain longer. Hence, always use roles or the names of the departments that perform the process step rather than the name of a person.

Try to place the text boxes in such a way that the length of the connectors is minimized, i.e., move the boxes as close to each other as possible. Also ensure that the space between boxes is as uniform as possible (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Poor Layout of Boxes (Left), Better Layout (Right)

Care Required with Use of Connectors

Ensure that the connectors are actually connected with the text boxes or diamonds. This can be verified by clicking on the connector itself. If the end of a connector is colored red, it means that end is connected. On the other hand, if it is colored green, that is an indication that the end is not connected but is hanging loose. Ensuring that the connection is made is an important aspect of using a connector.

Never crisscross connectors as this will make the process map much less readable. Even if using Visio, which gives a provision to add a bend-over feature to facilitate crisscrossing connectors, avoid them as much as possible. Crisscrossing makes the process map look like a bowl of spaghetti (Figure 6). Split the process map into two pages if necessary. A simplified version of the process map in Figure 6 is illustrated in Figures 7 and 8.

Figure 6: Request for and Issuance of Airline Ticket (Process Map That Looks Likes a Plate of Spaghetti) Figure 7: A Simplified Flow (Part 1): Request for an Airline Ticket Figure 8: A Simplified Flow (Part 2): Issuance of an Airline Ticket

　

Try to reduce the number of bends (elbows) on connectors. If there is a need to make very small movements to straighten a connector line, first select the text box that needs to be moved and then press the control key and hold it. Now use the arrow keys to move the text box. This will help move the text box a smaller distance than the normal movement using arrow keys.

Ensure that the direction of the connectors is always either to the right, down or up. Avoid connectors that move backward or to the left.

Interchange the direction of Y or N on decision boxes to choose a best route, to avoid crisscrossing connectors or to reduce the length of the connectors.

Numbering Conventions Recommended

It often helps to number the process maps and process steps. A good system to use is this numbering convention:

Level 1: Process 1.0, Process 2.0, Process 3.0, etc.
Level 2: Sub-Process 1.1, Sub-Process 1.2 ? Sub-Process 2.1, Sub-Process 2.2,
Sub-Process 2.3 ? Sub-Process 3.1, Sub-Process 3.2 ?etc.
Level 3: Sub-Process 1.1.1, Sub-Process 1.1.2, Sub-process 1.1.3 ?
Sub-Process 2.1.1, Sub-Process 2.1.2?etc.
And so on?/P>

Tips/Techniques for Advanced Users

One idea to better use space is to use the zigzag movement. This tip is somewhat contrary to the idea of reducing the amount of printing on a page. However, the idea is to reduce the number of pages or otherwise simplify the maps when the number of process steps are many and spill over to numerous pages. In such cases, the use of the zigzag layout becomes a real option (Figure 9).

Figure 9: Zigzag Layout

Another idea is to try to have all connectors joining a text box at the same point. This will help reduce the total length of connectors on a page.

Always assume that the X axis depicts time. This will help arrange process steps that happen one after the other in time. Ensure that the text boxes of process steps done one after the other in time are not aligned together vertically but placed adjacent to one another.

Conclusion: A Final, Over-Arching Tip

These guidelines, developed through practical experience, should help achieve better mapping results. A final, over-arching tip: One should be willing to start from scratch and redraw the whole process map in order to make it easier to serve its purpose.