Value stream mapping as a versatile tool
for lean implementation: an Indian case
study of a manufacturing firm
Bhim Singh and S.K. Sharma
Bhim Singh is an Assistant
Professor in the Department
of Mechanical Engineering,
Galgotias College of
Engineering and
Technology, Greater Noida,
India. S.K. Sharma is a
Professor in the Department
of Mechanical Engineering,
NIT Kurukshetra, Haryana,
India.
PAGE 58 j MEASURING BUSINESS EXCELLENCE
Summary
Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explain how value stream mapping (VSM) is helpful in lean
implementation and to develop the road map to tackle improvement areas to bridge the gap between
the existing state and the proposed state of a manufacturing firm.
Design/methodology/approach Through this case study, the existing stage of manufacturing is
mapped with the help of VSM process symbols and the biggest improvement areas like excessive WIP,
lead time, cycle time, are identified. Some modifications in current state map are suggested and with
these modifications future state map is prepared. Further TAKT time is calculated to set the pace of
production processes.
Findings Current state and future state of manufacturing of a firm are compared and witnessed: 92.58
percent reduction in lead time, 2.17 percent reduction in processing time, 97.1 percent reduction in WIP
and 26.08 percent reduction in manpower requirement.
Research limitations/implications The findings are limited due to the focused nature of the case
study. VSM can also be applied to the process industry as well as to the service sector.
Practical implications This case study shows that VSM is a powerful tool for lean implementation and
allows every industry to understand and continuously improve its understanding towards lean
manufacturing.
Originality/value This paper is a real case study showing VSM applications for lean implementation.
Keywords Lean production, Work in progress, Value analysis, Lead times
Paper type Case study
1. Introduction
The goal of lean manufacturing is to become highly responsive to customer demand while
producing quality products in the most efficient and economical manner by reducing various
waste in human effort, inventory, time to market and manufacturing space. This approach
focuses around the elimination of all kind of waste. Waste takes many forms and can be
found at any time and in any place. It may be found hidden in policies, procedures, process
and product designs, and in operations. Waste consumes resources but does not add any
value to the product. Russell and Taylor (1999) define waste as anything other than the
minimum amount of equipment, effort, materials, parts, space and time that are essential to
add value to the product. It has been established beyond doubt that the organizations that
have mastered lean manufacturing methods have substantial cost and quality advantages
over those which are still practicing traditional mass production (Fleischer and Liker, 1997).
The original concepts and definitions given by Monden (1993) and Womack et al. (1990),
about value stream mapping (VSM) demonstrated that it is necessary to map both
inter-company and intra-company value-adding streams. Value stream refers to those
specifics of the firm that add value to the product or service under consideration. VSM was
initially developed in 1995 with an underlying rationale for the collection and use of the suite
of tools as being to help researchers or practitioners to identify waste in individual value
j VOL. 13 NO. 3 2009, pp. 58-68, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1368-3047 DOI 10.1108/13683040910984338
 streams and, hence, find an appropriate route to its removal. The process itself is very
simple and straightforward. It usually starts with customer delivery and work its way back
through the entire process documenting the process graphically and collecting data along
the way. Finally it results in a single page map called Value stream, these maps contains
data such as cycle time, work-in-process (WIP) levels, quality levels, and equipment
performance data. Depending on the complexity of the process and the number of
components involved additional data required may be collected from other sources. A very
important part of the VSM process is documenting the relationships between the
manufacturing processes and the controls used to manage these processes, such as
production scheduling and production information. Unlike most process mapping
techniques that often only document the basic product flow, VSM also documents the
flow of information within the system. Where the materials are stored (raw materials and WIP)
and what triggers the movement of material from one process to the next are key pieces of
information. VSM is about eliminating waste wherever it is. Various terminology used in VSM
are discussed in Table I.

2. Review of literature
Lean manufacturing uses tools like one-piece flow, visual control, kaizen, cellular
manufacturing, inventory management, Poka yoke, standardized work, workplace
organization and scrap reduction to reduce manufacturing waste. VSM is an excellent tool
for any enterprise that wants to become lean (Russell and Taylor, 1999). Rother and Shook
(1999) defined VSM as a powerful tool that not only highlights process inefficiencies,
transactional and communication mismatches but also guides about the improvement.
According to Hines and Rich (1997) value stream is a collection of all actions value added as
well as non-value added that are required to bring a product or a group of products that use the
same resources through the main flows, from raw material to the hands of customers. Jones
and Womack (2000) explain VSM as the process of visually mapping the flow of information
and material as they are and preparing a future state map with better methods and
performance. A value stream consists of everything including the non-value added activities
and provides a pictorial view of what elements of the process the customer is willing to pay for
(Tapping and Shuker, 2003). Jones and Womack define VSM as the simple process of directly
observing the flows of information and materials as they now occur, summarizing them visually,
and then envisioning a future state with much better performance (Voelkel and Chapman,
2003). Hines (1999) has designed a VSM and lean approach to supply chain improvement.
Brunt (2000) has made an attempt to expand VSM across the whole supply chain. Current state
and future state maps have been highlighted to illustrate the benefits of a lean system pictorially
and a method of constructing an action plan has been discussed. The lean communication
provider explains the contribution that service management can make towards reducing costs

Table I Terminology used for VSM

TAKT time The rate at which a company must produce a product to satisfy its customer demand. It is calculated by
dividing available working time per day (in minutes or seconds) to customer demand per day (in relevant
units)
Available working time per shift
TAKT time
Customer demand per shift
Production lead-time It is the total time a component takes in its way through the shop floor, beginning with arrival of raw material to
shipment of finished/semi finished goods to customer
Value adding time It is the time which is utilized in adding actual value to the product
Current state map It describes the existing/ current position of shop floor of any manufacturing facility
Future state map It describes the proposed/future position of shop floor of any manufacturing facility in order to bring some
improvement
Kanban Kanban is a Japanese word that means card and which is used to reduce inventory
Pull production Producing exactly at pace of customers requirement

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 and focusing on customer value (Adams and Willetts, 1996). Gallone and Taylor (2001) made
the attempt to develop a lean logistics strategy from VSM. An application of VSM was also
found in the distribution industry (Hines et al., 1998). Numerous researchers have contributed
to the role of VSM to improve the supply chain process of the organization. Hines (1999),
Lamming et al. (2000), Taylor and Brunt (2001), Seth and Gupta (2005) have made a successful
attempt to use VSM as a technique to achieve productivity improvement at the supplier end for
an automotive industry. They reported a drastic improvement in production output per person,
reduction of work in process and finished goods inventory. Emiliani and Stec (2004) described
the use of value stream maps for determining the beliefs, behaviors and competencies
possessed by business leaders. As the complexity of manufacturing and business is growing,
newer value stream tools are emerging. Today, there exists a plethora of different tools and
techniques developed for different purposes and waste reduction or elimination. Although
several researchers like Forza et al. (1993), Beesley (1994), Jessop and Jones (1995) have
used VSM for different areas, yet much more needs to be done. That is why newer classification
and application areas are emerging. Over the years, many lean manufacturing tools to support
value stream have been developed and many more are being proposed (Schonberger, 1982;
Dillon, 1985; Womack et al., 1990; Lamming, 1993; Barker, 1994; Liker et al., 1995; Cusumano
and Nobeoka, 1998; Liker, 1998; Taylor and Brunt, 2001). Table II provides an overview of major
contributions to the field of VSM.

3. Profile of manufacturing firm

The firm under study ABC Ltd is located near Patiala, Punjab (India) and deals with
manufacturing of sophisticated processed components to meet the maintenance need of
diesel traction fleet of Indian railways. It was established in 1982 covering an area of 47,000
sq.m and annual turnover is approximately 450 crores. The company employs 1,500
personnel including workers, supervisors, engineers and top management.

4. Present work
Present work deals with the mapping of existing state of manufacturing of crank shaft gear
manufacturing line of ABC Ltd. This mapping is done with a pencil and paper using various
process symbols of VSM to visualize the flow of material and information as a product takes
its way in manufacturing line. Mapping is done keeping in view of the lean manufacturing
principles which are the backbone of VSM (Seth and Gupta, 2005) These principles are:

Table II Major contributions to the field of VSM

Major contributors Area of work

Monden (1993) Defined value from customers viewpoint

Jessop and Jones (1995) Developed tools to understand different value
streams and their overlapping nature
Hines and Rich (1997) Suggested classification scheme about seven
new mapping tools of VSM
Hines et al. (1998); Hines (1999); Grewal and Identification and elimination of muda
Sareen (2006); Grewal and Singh (2006)
Brunt (2000); Abdulmalek and Rajgopal (2007); Improved productivity of process industry
Seth et al. (2008); McDonald et al. (2002)
Mcmanus and Millard (2002) Product development (PD)
Emiliani and Stec (2004) Leadership development
Seth and Gupta (2005) Productivity improvement at supplier end
Snyder et al. (2005) Health care center
Seth et al. (2008) Address various wastes in the supply chain of the
edible cottonseed oil industry
Faisal et al. (2006) Mapped supply chains on these two dimensions
risk and customers satisfaction
Klotz et al. (2008) Explained impact of process mapping on
transparency in an employee training session
Lasa et al. (2008) VSM is a valuable tool for redesigning the
productive systems

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B Define value from your customers perspective.
B Identify the value stream.
B Eliminate the seven deadly wastes.
B Make the work flow.
B Pull the work rather than push it.
B Pursue to perfection level.
The major steps involved in mapping are as follows:
1. Various process symbols of VSM are drawn representing customer, supplier and
production control, with sufficient space in between them.
2. All pertinent data related to existing stage of manufacturing such as lead time, process
time, change over time and no. of shifts are shown by data boxes below the VSM symbols.
3. The monthly/daily requirements of product along with the number of containers and
kanbans required are obtained.
4. Movement of product is shown with arrows including shipment and receiving data.
5. In between two workstations WIP is shown with proper inventory icons.
6. Major gap areas are identified from the current state map.
7. With the application of lean tools various gap areas are bridged in order to prepare
proposed map.
8. Future state map is prepared and improvements achieved are highlighted.

5. Current state map

All the data for current state map were collected according to the approach recommended
by (Rother and Shook, 1999) with the consultation to workers, supervisors, engineers and
managers. Figure 1 shows the current state map of the crank shaft gear manufacturing line.
The demand per month of Crankshaft gear is 225, effective number of working days is 25 per
month, number of shifts per day is 3 and working hours per shift are 7:

Available working time per shift 7* 3* 60

TAKT times 140 minutes
Customer demand per shift 225=25

Demand comes from the customers (in present case it is railway department) to planning
department of ABC Ltd. then planning department send its requirement to different suppliers
by manually or by electronics media. In present case ABC Ltd. keeps raw material inventory
of 15 days in their store, material moves from raw material store to finished items store
through a number of processes/ machines like face grinding on R S grinder,
drilling-tapping-D hole on R drill, step milling, turning on VTL, spot facing on drill,
deburing-bolting, chamfering, hug hole drilling, bore grinding, identification marking and
quality check up, hobbing and quality checkup, grinding and quality checkup, height
maintained on R S grinder, key way cutting, benching, deburing, shot pinning and
inspection. The production lead time and value-added time were noted on the current state
map. It provides a snapshot in time. Inventory storage points in between the stages are
shown in triangles. The timeline at the bottom of the current state map has two components.
The first component is the production lead time and second component is value-added time
or processing time. Value-added time is calculated by adding the processing time for each
process in the value stream. The cycle time for each is the average cycle time, which is
determined by using actual data from the company. This current state map provides a
picture of existing positions and guide about the gap areas. It helps to visualize how things
would work when some improvements/changes are incorporated. The gap area in the
existing state results in a road map for improvement.

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 Figure 1 Current state map

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6. Analysis of current state map
For the analysis of existing status, a few assumptions are made. Regarding demand of
crankshaft gear it is assumed that maximum demand may reach up to 225 per month. This is
derived from past sales data at the industry under study. The current state map captures
information at a particular instance, which may vary from shift to shift. For the sake of analysis
the shift and operator-wise variation (which may be there) is not considered. Details
regarding the current state of the manufacturing process of ABC Ltd. are obtained from the
VSM of current or as is status as shown in Figure 1. Actual processing time or the real
value-adding time for the existing process is 1,702 minutes (28 hours and 22 Minutes),
whereas production lead-time is 53.31 days (53 days, 07 hours and 26 minutes) as shown. It
has been observed that significant scope for improvement is there as a particular crank shaft
gear waits for 53.31 days and real value addition time is only about 28 hours. On the other
hand there is high work in process inventory of 345 crankshaft gears.

7. Proposed changes for future state map

Acting on the gap areas identified by the value stream mapping of the existing state, some
changes were proposed as indicated in Figure 2. Store persons were asked to fulfill hourly
demand instead of supplying shift-wise. It is requiring a high degree of information flow and
coordination to fulfill hourly demand. To track hourly demand a kanban system is proposed. As
it helped to foster proper information flow regarding demand. It is suggested that withdrawal
kanban should flow from planning department to dispatch. Similarly, the production kanban is
suggested flowing from dispatch to raw material store. The kanban system brought the
necessary schedule and delivery discipline. This is necessary to ensure the functioning of raw
material store and dispatch like a supermarket. It is also observed that inventory was high in
the production line. ABC was holding 15 days inventory in the store because of poor
communication and a play-safe tendency. Electronic information flow is proposed for the
suppliers of ABC. It helped in reducing order quantity and inventory at raw material stores.
Implementation of milk-run discipline introduced between ABC and its suppliers reduced
transportation costs. These changes reduced inventory levels in raw material store. This also
helped in making the whole supply chain lean and flexible. To synchronize station cycle time
with TAKT time at step milling station, present cutter of milling machine should be changed
with nitrided cutter or nitriding of the present cutter should be done. With nitrided cutter it will

Figure 2 Future state map

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Figure 3 Comparison of TAKT time with processing time for current and future state map

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 be possible to increase milling speed and station cycle time of 150 minutes can be reduced to
TAKT time (i.e. 140 minutes). At vertical turret lathe for chamfering operation, a cemented
carbide tool is suggested in place of the HSS tool which will not only synchronize the station
cycle time with a TAKT time but also improve the quality and at bore grinding with Arbor
grinding wheel, presently grinding allowances are 22 to 26 percent, they can be reduced to 10
to 15 percent to meet the requirements of TAKT time. The future state is presented in Figure 3.

8. Analysis of future state map

The calculations from Figure 3 which are shown in Table III indicate that work in process
inventory is reduced from 345 to 10, production lead-time is reduced from 53.31 days (53
days, 07 hours and 28 minutes) to 4.11 days (04 days, 07 hours and 38 minutes) and
processing time is also reduced from 1702 minutes (28 hours and 22 minutes) to 1,665
minutes (27 hours and 45 Minutes), see Figures 4 and 5. High demand at ABC is easily
achievable with reduction in both WIP and finished goods inventory in the supply chain. All
these proposed changes will lead to a significant cost reduction at ABC, and hence it will
also help in reducing overall costs in the supply chain. Now the ABC will be in a position to
deliver at an hourly rate, and high quality crankshaft gear at lower cost, which is also the
requirement of a lean and responsive environment. After applying the proposed changes
station cycle time will synchronize with TAKT time as shown in Figure 2.

9. Conclusions
It is proven beyond doubt that VSM is a powerful tool for lean manufacturing and allows firms
to understand and continuously improve its understanding towards lean. It links people,
tools, processes and even reporting requirements to achieve lean goals. It provides clear
and concise communication between management and shop floor teams about lean
expectations, along with actual material and information flow. This paper compared the
current state and future state of a manufacturing firm and witnessed 92.58 percent reduction
in lead time, 2.17 percent reduction in processing time, 97.1 percent reduction in WIP and
26.08 percent reduction in manpower requirement.

Table III Comparison of lead time, processing time, inventory and man power requirement in current and future state of
crank shaft manufacturing line
Processing time Inventory Manpower requirement
Lead time (days) (minutes) (component) (No.)
Current Future Current Future Current Future Current Future
Machines/processes state state state state state state state state

Store 15.00 3.00 00 00 180 27 3 1

R S Grinder 1.10 1.10 112 112 10 09 1 1
R. Drill 2.00 0.00 140 140 18 00 1 1
Milling m/s 2.11 0.00 150 140 19 00 1 1
V T Lathe 1.66 0.00 135 135 15 00 1 1
R Drill 1.89 0.00 112 112 17 00 1 1
Torquing and benching 2.33 0.00 90 90 21 00 1 1
V T Lathe 2.77 0.00 165 140 25 00 1 1
R Drill 2.00 0.00 64 64 18 00 1 1
Grinder 2.56 0.00 155 140 23 00 1 1
Id marking and Q checkup 1.11 0.00 52 52 10 00 1 1
Hobbing and Q checkup 5.33 0.00 138 138 48 00 1 1
Grinding and Q Checkup 2.44 0.00 120 120 22 00 1 1
R S Grinder 2.11 0.00 37 37 19 00 1 1
Broach 2.00 0.00 38 38 18 00 1 0
R Drill (Balancing) 1.78 0.00 112 112 16 00 1 1
Benching 2.00 0.00 30 30 18 00 1 1
HTS and Q checkup 3.11 0.00 52 52 28 00 1 0
Finished goods store 2.00 0.00 00 00 18 09 3 1
Total 55.31 4.10 1702 1665 345 10 23 17
(in revelant units) days days Minutes Minutes Nos Nos Persons Persons

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 Figure 4 Comparison of production leads time of current and future state map

Figure 5 Comparison of inventory of current and future state map

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About the authors

Bhim Singh is presently associated with Galgotias College of Engineering and Technology,
Greater Noida, UP, India, as an Assistant Professor in Mechanical Engineering Department.
He holds a BTech degree from REC Kurukshetra, and MTech degree from GNDEC, Ludhiana.
He is presently pursuing a PhD from NIT Kurukshetra on Lean Manufacturing. He has more
than ten years of teaching experience in Undergraduate and Post graduate classes. He has
published and presented papers in several national and international conferences. He has
guided many projects to undergraduate students.His areas of interest include: statistical
quality control, operations research, supply chain management, value engineering and lean
manufacturing. Bhim Singh is the corresponding author and can be contacted at:
bhimsingh_ncce@rediffmail.com
S.K. Sharma, eminent scholar and leader in the field of industrial engineering and
entrepreneurship development, is currently a Professor in the Department of Mechanical
Engineering at National Institute of Technology, Kurukshetra, Haryana, India. He did
extensive research in the field of Industrial engineering and has guided 16 candidates in
their dissertation for a MTech degree. He is guiding ten students for their PhD Degree in the
field of production and industrial engineering. He has published many papers in national
and international journals of repute.

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