It’s nice you have now created the Value Stream Map of your process which is one of the most crucial element of Lean. But it will not serve any purpose unless you analyse it and find opportunity for improvements in your business.

Here are 7 easy steps to analyse your Value Stream Map…

Step 1.

Look for 7 Types of Waste in your Current State Value Stream Map. These are the 7 evils which sucks cash in your business such as over-production, waiting, over-processing, unnecessary motion, transportation, defects, inventory.

Step 2.

Find out and document Cycle time of each function or step in your process. Cycle time is the time it takes to complete a unit of work. It includes value added time as well as non-value added time.

Step 3.

Assess and find out Value Added time for each step for which you have documented Cycle times. Value Added time is the time spent on activity which actually add value to your end customer. If you like to know more about Value Added time read our article 3 Rules That Will Bring More Money to You. The difference between Cycle time and Value Added time is Non-Value Added time which is the target for elimination in Lean Thinking. For example, it may take 30 minutes to complete a unit of work but the value added time is only 10 minutes. Rest is wasted on clarifying doubts, collecting more information, waiting of material, reworking on something, etc. Hence, non-value added time is 20 minutes (30 minutes – 10 minutes) which is our target for elimination.

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Step 4.

Observe your process and document the error rate. Error rate is the probability that the product or information will not be as per the expectation of your customer or next person in your process. How many times your customer or next person or department rejects your work and you have to re-work on it to make it correct. For example, 5 units out of 100 instances come back to you for correction. Hence, error rate is 5% in this case.

Step 5.

Observe your process for queue times. Queue is the time material or information waits between two different process functions or steps. This causes delay into the process. It may be due to downtime, long setup times, quality problems, equipment or person availability. The reason may also be related to employee morale or lack of training.

Step 6.

See if any problems happen due to communication problems in your process. There are two types of communication manual and electronic. Which ones create more problems in your environment.

Step 7.

Last but not the least, look for areas in your process whether you are following push methods or pull methods. Pushing means you are producing without knowing whether it is needed downstream or not. This leads to piling up of work if the next person is not ready to take this work or the product is not to be consumed or bought by end customer immediately after delivery. In contrast to push method, pulling means you work only when it is required by the customer. Pull prevents you from overproducing and saves your time and energy in useless efforts.

Would you like to add some more if we have missed out something to be analysed in a Value Stream Map?

Read further…

5 Easy Steps to Start Making Your Company Lean

8 Tips to Make Your VSM More Effective

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