Opportunity Flowchart for Six Sigma

Opportunity Flowchart for Six Sigma

4-4 minutes

A Swim lane Flowchart (also known as opportunity flowchart, cross-functional flowchart)is a kind of flowchart, which visually distinguishes job sharing and responsibilities for sub-processes of a business process through the use of container boxes called swim lanes. Swim lanes may be arranged either horizontally or vertically. Swim lane diagram can be used for many different purposes including identifying value vs non-value processes, distinguished roles and responsibilities among departments in an organization and so on.

The following Swim lane diagram is a generic template that categorizes several processes into three vertical groups and four horizontal groups.

Opportunity Flowchart

An opportunity flowchart is a variant of swim lane diagram which highlights non-value-added (NVA) steps, separating them in from value-added (VA) steps using two swim lanes. The proportion and type of NVA steps reveal important information about the improvements that should be considered.

opportunity swim lane flowchart example

Value Added, Non-Value Added, Necessary Non value Added Activities

Value-added activities are those processes that must be completed to satisfy your customer base. For example:

“There’s no way I’ll buy that unless you include…”

Nonvalue-added activities are production or service-related activities that simply add cost to, or increase time spent on, a product service without increasing its market value(i.e. 8 classic wastes). For example, the repair of machines, storage of inventory, moving materials, maintenance, and inspections

Necessary non-value adding activities don’t contribute to customer satisfaction that they must be done and they are essential and difficult to remove from the operation or production, i.e. comply with regulations or organizational policies, etc.

Note That:

Nonvalue-added activities consume resources but create no value for the customer. Even if they stopped and they would be invisible to the end-user or customer.

In conclusion, value-added activities should be further optimized for seeking continuous improvement and growth of an organization, while the non-value added activities should be eliminated, or at least minimized as much as possible.