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This is a step by step guide to creating a current state value stream map, the first step
in working towards your ideal state value stream and a truly lean system. Your current
state value stream map is a team effort that is conducted by those people who are
involved in the process, at the actual process, not by an expert locked in a room with a
pile of procedures.
Below we will go through;
VSM Symbols
Information Flows
Process Data
Value stream mapping (VSM) is a team exercise and should involve representatives from all of
the areas within the process being mapped, this process should be facilitated and led by an
expert with experience in creating value stream maps. A value stream map is best created by
hand using a pencil (you will need to make frequent corrections and changes) on a sheet of A3
paper. It is better to create by hand and involve the entire team in its creation rather than have
an expert take the information and return later with a finished map!
Use a simple matrix to show products that use the same process route.
Firstly we need to decide what it is exactly that we wish to map, in a company with many
products there may have to be some initial work done to identify which product or family group
of products that should be mapped, we may decide to go with highest volume or value, or take a
longer term strategic look at those product ranges that we expect to do more business with in
the future or we may be guided by our customers as to what to map.
If we have a plethora of products we may wish to first conduct a product family analysis, this is a
simple review of our products and which processes they go through. It may not be necessary to
analyze all products, use a Pareto analysis to decide which products you need to analyze (either
through volume or value or a combination.) This analysis can help us group together products
that share common routing through our processes. Our value stream map can then concentrate
on either a single product or a family of them sharing common processes.
Value Stream Mapping Symbols
The picture to the Left shows some of the commonly used value stream mapping symbols and
their meanings. It is not necessary to use these specific symbols, if you have symbols that are
more relevant / descriptive for your processes then use those.
Bound the Process
We need to decide the limits of our map, most value stream maps are conducted from supplier
through to customer within an organization and these should be the first boxes placed on your
VSM to bound the process. It is possible to map the entire supply chain, in this case the start
and end points for your process map would be the raw materials and the final consumer, instead
of putting boxes for process steps thereafter however you would use companies.
Process steps
Once you have your process boundaries established you need to define your process steps for
your map, some people advocate walking the process from customer back to supplier or the
other way around, quite frankly it does not matter too much which way you do it.
The process steps are the various operations that are performed on the product, these are
generally located in a single place with one point that inventory enters and then leaves. We are
not breaking down each operation into specific tasks, there are other process mapping techniques
such as flow charting that would be a better tool for analyzing to that level of detail.
Add Information Flows to your Value Stream Map
One of the things that differentiates a VSM from most other mapping tools is the inclusion of the
information flows into the map. We need to include how the customers order product, frequency
and method, and how we translate that back to our supplier. We also include how we then
communicate requirements to our processes to ensure that we produce what the customer
wants.
This where we need to do a little thinking and some work, get the team to collect data regarding
the performance of each step of the process; typical types of date to collect are;
Inventory
Number of operators
Shifts worked
Scrap rate
Batch Size
Select the relevant measures for your process and record actual data at the workplace, try to
avoid historical measures where possible, get your own current information. If you do use
timings and other data from the system to save time make a note of those measures and
ensure that you go back and verify them during the action phase. Record this data in the data
boxes on your Value Stream Map
Inventory
Inventory and overproduction are two of the biggest of the seven wastes of lean and tend to occur
when we have problems in our production processes. We use excess inventory to cushion
ourselves against process problems so careful note should be taken of inventory build up. When
counting inventory for your map question carefully as it is not unusual to find pallets of inventory
stored in odd locations due to previous problems or as a contingency.
Time Line
We create the time line to give us information about total process times and lead times for
inventory through our processes; we use the inventory at each stage and the daily demand to
calculate the amount of stock in days and add this to the top of the time line, this will allow us to
calculate a total lead time. The cycle time for one product is then placed in the lower portion and
this will be added to give a total processing time.
It is usual to at this point to have lead times that are several days to several weeks and
processing times that are are only a few minutes which highlights just how much waste there is
in our system.
This gives us our completed current state value stream map; now the real work can start.
The map produced above is a fairly simple map with just one customer and one supplier, more
often than not we have multiple suppliers and customers and it may be necessary to draw on
more than one. In this case the process is still the same but when you calculate your timeline
use the worst case for inventory. If you have many suppliers it may be worth concentrating on
your most important suppliers or grouping them into similar types such as fasteners.
More often than not you can still show multiple customers as one, or if required as groups with
similar requirements such as weekly or monthly demands.
Excessive Inventory
Low uptime
Moving from Current state through an iteration of future state maps towards our Ideal
Once you have your ideal state then you can plan to achieve your shared vision of where the
process needs to be; the simplest way to do this is to plan a series of improvements, each
taking two to three months, and use your value stream map to communicate what you want to
do. Use the kaizen burst symbol on your current state map to highlight the improvements that
you want to make, for instance reducing the setup time on the final test from 20 minutes to 5
minutes, your aspirations for your improvements become your future state value stream map.
You may need several iterations of future state maps before you finally reach your ideal state.
If you have any questions about conducting value stream mapping (VSM) or creating a value
stream map please leave them in the section below.