DMAIC – Approve Accounting Batch Process

Recall the DMAIC approach of a Six Sigma project. Choose a real-world process (at a bank or hospital or university or restaurant or hotel or even at your work place), and explain how the DMAIC approach can be applied to improve that process. Explain each of the 5 phases (DMAIC) in as much detail as possible. Previously, I chose Accounts Payable for my project charter but as you stated its not anything Six Sigma can assist with as there are some unknown outliers, so I wanted to delve deeper into that process. Given Six Sigma’s manufacturing roots extend back to discrete manufacturing, which is a form of batch processing, it seems Six Sigma would fit nicely into batch processes. Our Director of Accounting is looking to track how the time it takes to process and approve expense reports on a weekly basis. Lisa, the accounting director mostly works alone but two other employees that assist her part-time from Tuesday- Thursday. However, because of the reports being processed in batch by its region in Virginia and not individually, each person in the department tracks the number of hours per day and the number of reports processed during that time. The key data collected is the region from where the reports come from, total time in minute spent obtaining, and number of reports processed.