11.5 Control Tollgate Review

All roads come to an end. The control stage marks the end of your DMAIC project and the start of your newly improved process that you are ready to hand off to the process owner. As with many newly-built highways, there is a tollgate at the end of the road that serves as a checkpoint. In this instance, the control tollgate involves the process improvement team meeting with the project champion to make sure that the newly improved process accomplishes the target objectives and, more importantly, whether sufficient mechanisms are in place to ensure that the process improvements can be sustained once the team moves on.

Project Summary

Every project is a story with a beginning and an end. You have done a lot of work to improve a process. Having a project summary helps with understanding where we came from and where we currently stand. This part of the control tollgate requires you to demonstrate metrics that show what you have improved: process performance before and after the project. It would be good to include the following:

• Statement of project objectives and improvement opportunity

• Previous and revised standard operating procedures

• Description or storyboard of project work

• Previous and current process outcomes to demonstrate improvement

• Verified financial benefits of the newly-improved process

Monitoring and Control Plan

This is where the lane-keep assist is shown to the new project owners. That is because the best process is limited by its operators: the new operators need to know what to look for to ensure that the newly-improved process is sustainable after the hand-off. For this part of the control tollgate, you will need to include the following:

• Identify key inputs and outputs that require measurement for ongoing monitoring

• Define ranges for key inputs and outputs necessary for the process to be under control

• Implement response plans to address situations where process is not under control

• Design continuous improvement plan for future process improvement

Transfer of Ownership

The objective of the control tollgate is to hand the process off to the new process owners. To do that, you need to make sure that the new process owners are aware of all that is necessary to maintain the gains you have made. Thus, you need to make sure that the new process owners agree with your improvements and are trained to sustain them.

• Agreement with process owner to take ownership and responsibility for the new process as well as the control plan.

• Training for the process owners/operators for the newly improved process.

• Transition plan for the project team to hand off the process to the new project owner.

• A summary of key takeaways from the process improvement project, including opportunities for future process improvement.