GSCM 520 – Foundations in Global Supply Chain Management

WEEK 3 CASE STUDY

CASE—VALUE STREAM MAPPING (P. 428)

Dritan Papazisi

Submitted to Professor
Alek Granderson , MBA, MPM, PMP
AGranderson@devry.edu

Sunday, November 18, 2018

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Table of Contents

Eliminating the queue of work dramatically quickens the time it takes a part to flow through a system.
What are the disadvantages of removing those cues?................................................................................. 4
How do you think the machine operators would react to the change? ....................................................... 4
What would you do to ensure that the operators were busy? .................................................................... 5
References .................................................................................................................................................... 6

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Case—Value Stream Mapping (Lovelle, 2001)
In a three-page paper, answer the following.
 Eliminating the queue of work dramatically quickens the time it takes a part to flow
through a system. What are the disadvantages of removing those cues?
 How do you think the machine operators would react to the change?
 What would you do to ensure that the operators were busy?

Map of the Current State

Map of the Future State

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Eliminating the queue of work dramatically quickens the time it takes a
part to flow through a system. What are the disadvantages of removing
those cues?

If we analyze the previous system from each of all seven elements can be identified
three positions of inventory ques. (the triangle with an "I" in the middle). Inventory ques are
considered a waste because they increase the production lead time and lag the cash flow. In
essence the lean manufacturing requires one-piece flow throughout the production system.
One-piece flow ensures much shorter lead times and problem identification before an entire
week's worth of product is manufactured incorrectly.

However, this required a balanced workflow through the system, which means that if the
combined aggregate between machines 1 &2 it does not work then machine 2 will have to wait
accumulating wasted waiting time.
Another concern here is the receiving Kanban vs FIFO. In this case if deliveries are not
reliable or in case of bad weather, etc…all the plant will have to wait.

How do you think the machine operators would react to the change?
Answer to this question would depend on the previous history. This is why one typical
component of Lean Manufacturing and Toyota Production System (Liker, 2004) is continuous
improvement initiatives including the dialog with operators.

In scenario when this culture is built and:

i. the deliveries have been non reliable, or performance of the machines it has not been
reliable to sustain the lean single piece flow throughout the system the operators will be
interested for good company result so they will make management aware about the risks
of this implementation.
ii. On opposite, when this culture lacks the operators would be indifferent and their interest
will be more to milk some overtime due to longer waiting time wasted from machine to
machine or because of raw material deliveries delayed.

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What would you do to ensure that the operators were busy?
This is a question which can be answered considering the circumstances.

1. To eliminate the waiting time for delivery I would make sure that deliveries are being made
early in the morning. Dependent if the supplier is in close proximity to my plant I will assure that
production starts a couple of hours later from the time delivery of the raw materials is
scheduled This would allow me to have a steady material flow throughout the day.
In addition it would be preferable to receive the shipment by end of the day sothe following day
the raw material is already in the plant and workers are busy for entire day.
In cases where the raw materials are delivered from far, I would look to find a supplier close by,
or set up the system such that by end of each day the workers know whether they will have
enough material to wort on the following day or not.
2. To eliminate the time waisted by machine reliability in the short term would try to schedule
some safety training or other nonproductive activities for that time. But this have a limitation. In
the long term would try to have maintenance identify the root causes and come up with
corrective actions to address the situations of equipment’s unreliability.
3. In any case, I will build enough shop floor recordkeeping, such that it would help to be able to
identify the downtime and root causes. This is important to be able to assess the cost of
downtime and the cost of proposed corrective actions implementation.
This is very important because it will help drive to data driven proposals to higher management.
This is the right systematic approach to Define the issue (Downtime), Meadure (Downtime
Logged in shop floor records), Analyze (data are analyzed and proposal are being made).
Hopefully higher management approve implementation of the corrective actions and lastly
Control (via run charts it is visualized the downtime over time) and the cycle continues
perpetually.

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References
1. Liker, J (2004): The Toyota Way: 14 Management Principles from the World's Greatest
Manufacturer, McGraw-Hill Education; 1 edition.
2. Lovelle, J. (2001). . Mapping the value stream. IIE Solutions 33, (2), 26-33. Accessed on 11/18/18
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved
=2ahUKEwiV2NmJqd_eAhWE8YMKHWGPAAcQFjABegQIBBAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fneumann.h
ec.ca%2Fsites%2Fcours%2F6-510-
96%2FDocumentation%2FMappingthevaluestream.doc&usg=AOvVaw0X5Xd8m5OUnfiwwLddUj
fC.

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