Date: June 3, 2007

 

  SLA Based Service Delivery Using Six Sigma Concept

 
 

Executive Abstract

 

It is now widely accepted that service provision and receipt should be governed by an agreement. It is essential to define the parameters of the service, for the benefit of both the provider and the recipient.
An SLA sets the expectations between the customer and provider. Meeting SLA following DMAIC approach of six sigma seems interesting but wonders can be achieved if the team has a focused approach and management support to execute such projects.
In today’s competitive business environment, IT companies that want to grow and sustain an edge in the market must continually streamline and improve core business practices in order to meet their SLA. Six Sigma has been observed as a fundamental change in the way one does business.
DMAIC approach focuses towards a very systematic and integrated solution for managing changes and mitigating business risks as it identifies and eliminates problem with a structured, data-driven, problem-solving method using rigorous data-gathering and statistical analysis
Team working on the DMAIC approaches the problem in a very organized manner and executes the project very systematically with the objective very clear on meeting the Project targets on time. The reason for moving from traditional to defined DMAIC approach is that it ultimately aims at customer satisfaction through systematic approach with the objective of continuous improvement and sustains the improvements done. Any Six sigma project is build upon the customer input before setting the project targets. Business wise it gives more visibility to management and assurance to the customer in terms of better process adherence and product and service quality.
SLA based service delivery approach can be used for either engineering or support process; especially its success rate gets doubled when executed for helpdesk projects because of data dependency.
This paper is packed with various methods on how to execute six sigma projects in most cost effective manner, with maximum customer satisfaction and higher ROI. This paper is a result of success achieved on a live helpdesk project and includes all forms of data analysis, improvements achieved and control mechanism established based on the agreed SLAs.
We believe that if executed systematically through DMAIC approach, this will bring a revolutionary change in the organization culture and will provide lot of value addition and consistent results.

                                                                                                             

Introduction

Six Sigma is a unified approach to process excellence. It aims to achieve customer satisfaction by setting and making progress towards 3.4 defects per million opportunities. It identifies problems in a process, sets up a focused problem solving approach and works through the process towards its improvisation.
Six Sigma methodology provides the techniques and tools to improve the capability and reduce the defects in any process
Six Sigma methodology improves any existing business process by constantly reviewing and re-tuning the process. To achieve this, Six Sigma uses a methodology known as DMAIC (Define opportunities, Measure performance, Analyze opportunity, Improve performance, Control performance).
DMAIC Methodology
Key in any Six Sigma project is to set the goal first. The DMAIC methodology is a very systematic approach and moves phase by phase until the final goal is achieved.
The Define phase defines the process problem and sets the goal. Measure phase measures the process to determine current performance with respect to past performance. It is also suggested to set new metrics or customize the existing one to make the measurement system more robust. During the Analyze phase root cause analysis is done for the defined problem and action item is planned. Improve phase works on Improving
the process by eliminating those root cause found in analyze phase by taking appropriate corrective actions on the suggested action items. Control phase standardize the improved mechanism and set the Control mechanism for future process performance.
After the project charter was approved, SIPOC analysis was done to map the process flow with its input, output customer and suppliers. Later the CTQ (critical to quality) goals were set and broken down further with respect to business, team and customer.

   

      
   

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                                                                                                                                                                               Author

Jitendra Prasad Singh

Software Quality Expert

Quality Management Team

Mascon Global Ltd