VSMValue Stream Mapping

For A Made-To-Order CompanySource: Learning to See

by Mike Rother & John Shook

Topics Today

• What is VSM?

• Material & Information Flow

• Product Family

• Current State & Icons

• Analysis & Reducing Waste

• Future State

Lean Principles

① Value through the customer’s eyes

② Define VALUE STREAM

③ Implement flow

④ Create pull where flow is not possible

⑤ Continuous improvement

How is VSM different than a swim lane?

Swim Lane• Individual processes mapped

• Current state

• People & process

• Interview members

• Long paper & post-its

• Role based representation

VSM• Choose & analyze “product families”

• Current and future state

• Material & information flow

• Walk the process 2 times & document

• One 11 x 17 and a pencil

• Pictorial representation of layout

VSM defined

Value Stream Mapping – is all the actions (both value and non-value added) currently required to bring a product through the main flows essential to every product.

3 Flows in Manufacturing:

1) Material Flow 2) Information Flow 3) People / Process Flow

Topics Today

• What is VSM?

• Material & Information Flow

• Product Family

• Current State & Icons

• Analysis & Reducing Waste

• Future State

Material & Information Flow

How can we flow information so that one process will make only what the next process needs when it needs it?

Topics Today

• What is VSM?

• Material & Information Flow

• Product Family

• Current State & Icons

• Analysis & Reducing Waste

• Future State

Product Families

IDENTIFY your product families from the customer end of the value stream.

A PRODUCT FAMILY - is a group of products that pass through similar processing steps and over common equipment in your downstream processes.

CONSIDERATIONS – how much is wanted by the customer and how often?

Topics Today

• What is VSM?

• Material & Information Flow

• Product Family

• Current State & Icons

• Analysis & Reducing Waste

• Future State

① Take a quick walk along the entire door-to-door value stream.

② Go back and gather information at each process.

③ Begin at the downstream end first (e.g. Shipping).

④ Bring your stop watch and do not rely on standard times or information that you do not

personally obtain.

⑤ Map the whole value stream as one group, DON’T have teams branch off. Nobody will gain

a thorough education of the VSM.

⑥ Always draw by hand in pencil (retractable pencils with erasers work best)

Current State Steps

PRACTICE OFTEN BEFORE GATHERING A TEAM

Topics Today

• What is VSM?

• Material & Information Flow

• Product Family

• Current State & Icons

• Analysis & Reducing Waste

• Future State

LEAN Value Stream

All we are really trying to do in lean

manufacturing is to get one process to

make only what the next process needs

when it needs it.

(1) TAKT TIME – is also known as the “drum beat demand” of the customer. Takt time

determines the exact pace at which production needs to proceed in order to meet

ongoing demand. It is best used on continuous production lines or on work cells manufacturing a

family of similar products.

For custom manufacturers, customer demand rate “unit” can be tricky. One solution is to define a

“unit” as how much work can be done at your bottleneck process in a “takt” of say, 10 minutes.

Then break your orders up into units of this takt interval.

Analyzing & Reducing Waste

(2) DEVELOP CONTINUOUS FLOW – This can be achieved with a combination of

continuous flow and some pull/FIFO.

EX. You ship to an outside plating process one time per day. The plater can only handle 50 pieces

per day, so you set up a FIFO lane sized to hold, at most, 50 pieces of plating work. Whenever the

lane is full the upstream process stops producing parts to be plated. In this manner, the FIFO lane

prevents the supplying process from overproducing, even though the supplying process is not

linked to the plater via continuous flow or a supermarket.

(3) PACEMAKER PROCESS – How you control production at this process sets the pace

for all the upstream processes. For custom products, the scheduling point needs to be further

upstream.

Analyzing & Reducing Waste (cont.)

(4) LOAD LEVELING – Paced withdrawals of small, consistent quantities of work. A tool

used at some companies to help level both the mix and volume of production is a load leveling (or

heijunka) box. See picture below.

Analyzing & Reducing Waste (cont.)

How do you figure out pitch? For example, If your takt time = 30 seconds, and yourpack size = 20 pieces, then your pitch = 10 minutes (30 sec x 20 pcs = 10 min.)

Topics Today

• What is VSM?

• Material & Information Flow

• Product Family

• Current State & Icons

• Analysis & Reducing Waste

• Future State

Future State Question

1. What is the takt time?

2. Where can you see continuous flow processing?

3. At what single point in the production chain will you schedule

production?

4. How will you level the production mix?

5. What increment of work will you consistently release?

6. What process improvements will be necessary?