Piping Diagram

We sometimes find it difficult to help our mapping teams focus on opportunities within their process. Some useful tools to consider when analyzing your process:
Plumbing Diagram – A graphic representation of work process inefficiencies. It uses the metaphor of a plumbing system to help develop new and innovative ways of pinpointing trouble spots in the process.
How do you use the Plumbing Diagram?
Review your process map and identify the steps that have a potentially negative impact on customer satisfaction or process efficiency. Label these problem steps according to one or more of the categories below.

Leaks (handoffs): points in a process during which information or material is poorly transferred from one function to another and therefore is lost, misinterpreted, or held too long. Leaks happen when:
• Two or more people or groups are responsible for the same thing
• Two or more people or groups have different priorities because they are measured according to different standards
• Clear requirements are lacking
• Measurements are lacking
• A temporary patch cannot hold the flow
• Workers don’t have the tools to prevent or fix problems

Loops (rework): steps or groups of steps and decision points that are unnecessarily redone or redirected backward in the process or to other processes. Loops are caused by:
• Premature or uniformed decision making, causing rework
downstream

Poor initial quality (doing things wrong, or the wrong things, the first time)

• Customer requirements changing midstream in the process

• A jury-rigged process that is used by one group to work around the standard process and that causes problems for another group

• A lack of vision or prioritization by upper management, causing guesswork or unnecessary reviews

Screens (redundant inspection points): points at which information or material is over checked or over verified. Information or material may be over checked due to:
• Too many specifications
• Un-empowered workers
• An organizational norm for over analyzing data
• Managers who are unable to make decisions
• An organizational structure that forces the wrong people, or too many people, to check work before it moves on


Capacity Backups (overloads): points at which capacity does not meet demand, causing backups which may be due to:
• Incapable sub-processes
• People mismatched with their jobs
• Changes in the expected demand
• Lack of planning, preparation, or communication about future demands
• Inadequate training or information
• Inadequate resources allocated to sub- processes
• Outdated or technically inadequate equipment

Gold Piping (inappropriate escalations): points at which decisions are pushed upstream to a higher authority instead of down to the lowest level at which a well-informed decision could be made. Gold piping may be the result of:
• Unresolved conflicts between individuals, groups, or departments
• Fear of taking risks due to threats and punishments
• Customers being linked to a senior manager instead of to the person or group that does the work
• Unclear accountability, role definition, and delineation of authority among upper levels
• Turfism
• Power plays
• A lack of skills at the operational level
• Too much pressure to do the right thing
• The unavailability at the lowest level of information that would allow decisions to be made on the spot

Nonparallel Piping (delayed steps): steps that are completed one at a time (wasting time as a result), rather than concurrently whenever possible and may be the result of:
• Lack of coordination among complex tasks that have been reduced and separated into smaller parts
• Lack of authority to integrate the different parts of the process
• Too many people or areas having responsibility for the same process without adequate communication between them
• Inadequate planning
• Misconceptions about doing one thing before another starts
• Irrational and unchallenged operating procedures


Turbo Pumps (excessive accelerators): points at which work is pushed along too quickly, causing rework. Turbo pumps may be caused by:
• Pressure to meet unrealistic demands
• False time requirements or assumptions about customer needs
• An imbalance in the allocation of time to different parts of the process
• Lack of authority to slow down the process where needed

Expendable Piping (unnecessary steps): steps that could be eliminated without a significant impact on the end result and thereby increase efficiency, effectiveness, and/or customer satisfaction and may be the result of:
• Outdated assumptions and traditions
• Politics and turf issues
• Habit
• No one seeing the big picture
• Attempts to please the immediate customer and/or supplier at the expense of the ultimate customer


Step 2 Choose the most critical traps based on the impact they have on process performance, cycle time and the satisfaction of the ultimate customer.
Developing Plans for Change

At last you can decide, based on the work you’ve done so far, what changes you need to make in the process! You have several options. They include:
• Streamlining: eliminating duplication of effort, bureaucracy and non-value-added steps
• Correcting problems: finding and fixing known trouble spots in the process
• Preventing problems: taking steps to prevent problems that haven’t happened yet
• Standardizing: selecting the best ways to perform the activities in the process and teaching all employees to work in this way
• Automating or upgrading equipment: using new tools, machines and computers to increase the speed and accuracy of work