Ikea shopping process improvement
Final project report
1. Introduction of the process The process our team is going to discuss is IKEA shopping process. Customers will flow through the process by first entering a display area. The display area can be a kitchen, a dorm, a bedroom or a dinning room with all IKEA furniture. It helps customers find their needs about a piece of furniture and how to use them. Also it gives customers a lot of innovative ideas of how to decorate their bedroom or their dinning room with IKEA furniture. After customers find out what they want, they will go downstairs to pick the items from a big warehouse that has a lot of shelves. Then, with the items, they will go to the counters to check out. At last, there will be customer service to help the customers with any questions and returns.
We think the idea of display area is very innovative. Nowadays online shopping is prevailing, while enjoying the convenient of online shopping, people also realize that for some particular products, they do want to visit a physical store, touch and feel the products, learn how to use them, such as furniture. However, with an innovative beginning, the rest of process suffers the inconveniences of traditional furniture store: hard to find the items from a big warehouse or struggle to move heavy items, long waiting when check out and have some troubles to carry the item back to home (queen size mattress for example).
2. DMAIC model
We use DMAIC model to initiate our problem-solving process.
1. Define
We identify two problems in this process. First, finding an item and checking out is time-consuming, people have to spend a lot time looking around and then wait in a long line. Second, carrying heavy item is painful for some people.
2. Measure
One of our teammates is a fan of IKEA shopping. We picked a local IKEA store in the city of Chengdu in Sichuan province in China and have asked some of our friends who also like visiting or shopping in that store. The ideal time spending on
1. Introduction of the process The process our team is going to discuss is IKEA shopping process. Customers will flow through the process by first entering a display area. The display area can be a kitchen, a dorm, a bedroom or a dinning room with all IKEA furniture. It helps customers find their needs about a piece of furniture and how to use them. Also it gives customers a lot of innovative ideas of how to decorate their bedroom or their dinning room with IKEA furniture. After customers find out what they want, they will go downstairs to pick the items from a big warehouse that has a lot of shelves. Then, with the items, they will go to the counters to check out. At last, there will be customer service to help the customers with any questions and returns.
We think the idea of display area is very innovative. Nowadays online shopping is prevailing, while enjoying the convenient of online shopping, people also realize that for some particular products, they do want to visit a physical store, touch and feel the products, learn how to use them, such as furniture. However, with an innovative beginning, the rest of process suffers the inconveniences of traditional furniture store: hard to find the items from a big warehouse or struggle to move heavy items, long waiting when check out and have some troubles to carry the item back to home (queen size mattress for example).
2. DMAIC model
We use DMAIC model to initiate our problem-solving process.
1. Define
We identify two problems in this process. First, finding an item and checking out is time-consuming, people have to spend a lot time looking around and then wait in a long line. Second, carrying heavy item is painful for some people.
2. Measure
One of our teammates is a fan of IKEA shopping. We picked a local IKEA store in the city of Chengdu in Sichuan province in China and have asked some of our friends who also like visiting or shopping in that store. The ideal time spending on
References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMAIC