Dear community, in this post I would like to share with you an approach that you could use in your company, department or service to describe an As Is situation and to build a common vision for the To Be.

As we all know, you cannot improve something you do not know, you do not measure. It is why, once you have Define the project (cf DMAIC methodology), you will have to Measure and Analyze the process-(es) you want to improve.

This step is critical, as you will have to design a shared and agreed vision, the starting point to elaborate the future changes. This common vision is mandatory if you want to create a Team spirit and achieve great result.

My advice at this stage is very simple: collaborate with the team to build the As Is and then the To Be.

“Ok, but how to do so? “

There are several tools and the one I prefer is the MIFA. The Material & Information Flow Analysis (MIFA) is an analytical tool that reveals how business management actually works and provides a picture that everyone (Management, Manufacturing, Industrialization, Supply Chain , Quality…) can understand.

The picture is the Material & Information Flow Diagram (MIFD). Whatever the perimeter, the MIFD is the starting point for everyone concerned to define the As Is and the To Be situation.

The MIFD drawing will be collaborative, as you will ask all stockholder and users to describe and to draw with you the current process. You will create it, process per process and aggregate all in a global diagram.

In the past, I used to do it on paper that required a lot of work to copy/paste local diagram in the global one. What’s more, it was always an issue to store the final MIFD or to share it with people in remote.

Today, with tablet and collaborative tool as DELMIA 3DLean, you can easily draw you digital MIFD, all along the process (from warehouse, to manufacture, to R&D office), share it during meeting with the team in situ or remotely. You can store it and then compare the As Is, To Be and then what have been really achieved to measure the improvement.

A complete MIFA (MIFD & Analyses) takes between 4 and 6 weeks. Do not try to speed up the process and to avoid asking people about the real business process. The more you will spend time to describe the As Is in a collaborative way, the more your common vision will be shared and agreed; the easier it will be to find the good levers to improve your processes and achieve great results!