SIPOC Diagram Builder

What this tool does

CM8-225 builds SIPOC diagrams. You enter one row per element — each supplier, input, process step, output and customer — and the tool assembles them into a diagram in reading order, checks every column is covered, shows the shape of what you have entered, and prints a page you can pin up at the start of an improvement project.

Everything runs inside this single file. There is no account, no upload and no network request of any kind, so the names of your suppliers, customers and process steps never leave the computer you are using.

What a SIPOC is, and when to use it

SIPOC stands for Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, Customers. It is a one-page, high-level view of a process: who provides what, the four to seven big steps that turn those inputs into outputs, and who receives the results. It comes out of the six-sigma tradition — it is the standard Define-phase tool — but it needs no statistics and no belt of any colour to be useful.

Use a SIPOC at the start of a piece of work, before any detailed mapping:

• Scoping an improvement project — the SIPOC is where the team agrees where the process starts and stops, which is the decision most projects get wrong. If the first step is "Receive order", then quoting and pricing are out of scope, and everyone can see that on one page.
• Before a detailed process map — a flowchart or value-stream map of a process nobody has scoped grows without limit. The SIPOC fixes the boundaries first.
• Inducting people — a new team member can absorb a SIPOC in two minutes.
• Exposing disagreement — the most valuable SIPOC workshops are the ones where two experienced people give different answers to "what is the first step?".

A SIPOC is deliberately shallow. It has no decision points, no exceptions, no timings and no swim lanes. If you find yourself wanting those, you have finished the SIPOC and it is time for a proper process map.

What belongs in each column

Process (P) — do this column first. Four to seven high-level steps, each named verb + noun: "Receive order", "Pick components", "Dispatch". If you have more than seven, you are mapping at the wrong altitude — merge steps until the whole process fits in one line of boxes. Name the process itself the same way ("Fulfil customer orders", "Recruit a new starter"). Give every step an order number so the diagram reads left to right; the tool will remind you if one is missing.

Outputs (O) — what the process produces, stated as things, not activities: a completed shipment, a signed contract, a despatch confirmation. Include the secondary outputs that other teams depend on — the confirmation that triggers an invoice matters as much as the parcel.

Customers (C) — whoever receives an output. Customers are often internal: the accounts team receiving a despatch confirmation is a customer of the fulfilment process. Use the Linked to field to record which output each customer receives.

Inputs (I) — the materials, information and resources the process consumes: the sales order, the components, the packaging. If a step cannot start without it, it is an input.

Suppliers (S) — whoever provides an input. Like customers, suppliers can be internal — the sales office that provides the order is a supplier to fulfilment. Use Linked to to record which input each supplier provides; a supplier that provides nothing on the input list, or an input with no supplier, is a gap worth talking about.

A 30-minute SIPOC workshop

A SIPOC is built by the people who run the process, in one short session, not by one person at a desk. Get five to eight people who between them see the whole process, and work the columns in this order: P → O → C → I → S — not left to right.

The order matters. The process steps anchor everything, so agree them first — including the explicit decision about where the process starts and stops. Outputs come next because they fall naturally out of the last steps; customers follow directly from the outputs ("who receives this?"). Only then work backwards: inputs come from asking what each step consumes, and suppliers from asking who provides each input. Teams that start at the left instead spend twenty minutes arguing about suppliers to a process they have not yet agreed the shape of.

A workable timetable: five minutes to name the process and agree the first and last step; ten minutes on the process steps; five on outputs and customers; five on inputs and suppliers; five to flag what is critical to quality and to confirm the rows. Mark anything contested as Draft and move on — an unresolved disagreement recorded honestly is worth more than a false consensus.

Enter the rows into this tool during or straight after the session, mark the agreed ones Confirmed, and print the diagram. The unconfirmed tile on the dashboard tells you what still needs a decision.

Flagging what is critical to quality

The CTQ checkbox marks an element as critical to quality — something the customer would notice immediately if it went wrong. Typical flags: the input whose absence stops everything (a full kit of components), and the output the customer actually judges you on (the right goods, on the promised date).

Flag sparingly. Two or three CTQ items per SIPOC is normal; ten means nothing has been prioritised. The CTQ chart shows where the flags concentrate, and a process with no flags at all usually means the customer's requirements have not been discussed yet. CTQ items are where a measurement or a deeper analysis should start once scoping is done.

Reading the completeness table

The completeness table gives one line per process: how many elements sit in each of the five columns, and a verdict.

The verdicts read as follows:

• Complete — every column has at least one element and the step count is within your limit. Complete does not mean correct: it means the structure is there to argue about.
• Missing: … — at least one column is empty. Missing customers is the most common gap, and the most telling: a process whose customers nobody can name is a process nobody has looked at from the outside.
• Too many steps — more steps than your maximum. The diagram will still print, but a SIPOC with twelve steps is a flowchart wearing the wrong badge; merge the steps or switch tools.

The elements-per-process chart tells the same story at a glance — blue bars cover all five columns, amber bars are missing at least one.

Several SIPOCs in one file

The process or project name on each row is what groups rows into a diagram, so one file can hold the SIPOCs for a whole programme. Spell the name identically on every row — "Order fulfilment" and "Order Fulfilment " (with a stray space) are two different processes as far as the grouping is concerned. The completeness table, the size chart and the CTQ chart all report per process, and the reading-order table keeps each process's rows together.

Printing and sharing

Print Report produces a page from whatever the current filter shows: the headline tiles, the four charts, the completeness table, the full diagram in reading order and your notes. Print to PDF to circulate it after the workshop.

The scope line under the title states any filter in force. Clear the filters before printing anything described as the complete picture.

Saving your work

Elements, settings and the report header are written to this browser's local storage as you type, and the toolbar shows the time of the last save. That storage belongs to one browser on one computer: another browser, a private window, a second machine or a clean-up tool that clears site data will not have it.

Treat Export .json as the real save — one file containing everything, which Import .json restores anywhere. Export CSV gives you the element list for spreadsheet work. Reset asks twice, then erases everything this tool has stored. There is no undo.

FAQ

Is a SIPOC the same as a process map? No. A SIPOC is a scoping tool — one page, no decisions, no exceptions. A process map shows how the work actually flows, including the branches and the rework. Do the SIPOC first; it tells you what the map should cover.

Can a supplier also be a customer? Yes, and it is common. The sales office supplies the order and receives the despatch confirmation. Enter it twice — once in each column — and use Linked to to say what it provides and what it receives.

What if the team cannot agree on the steps? That disagreement is the finding. Record the contested rows as Draft, note the two views in the description, and settle it by walking the process — not by voting in the meeting room.

Do near-invisible inputs like "trained staff" belong? Judgement call. Include a resource if its absence genuinely stops the process and somebody identifiable supplies it; leave out generic entries ("electricity", "management support") that would appear on every SIPOC ever written and inform nobody.

Why only 4–7 steps? Because the point is a shared high-level picture. Seven boxes fit in a head and on a page; seventeen do neither. Detail belongs in the next tool, not this one.

Accuracy & disclaimer

This tool records what the team entered and assembles it into a diagram. It cannot tell whether the steps are the right steps, whether the order reflects reality, or whether the supplier and customer lists are complete — those are workshop judgements, and the diagram is only as good as the conversation behind it.

A SIPOC is a scoping snapshot, not a process model, a contract or an operating procedure. Confirm the detail with a proper process map, and with the people who do the work, before acting on it.