What is Value Stream Mapping

What is Value Stream Mapping?

The Value Stream Mapping method is a visualization tool oriented  to the Toyota version of Lean Manufacturing (Toyota Production System). It helps to understand and streamline work processes by using the tools and techniques of lean production. The goal of value stream mapping is to identify, show and to decrease waste in the process. Waste is defined as any activity that doesn't add customer specified value to the final product. The word is often used to demonstrate and decrease the amount of wasting in a manufacturing system. Value stream mapping can thus serve as a starting point to help management, engineers, production associates, schedulers, suppliers, and customers to recognize waste and identify the causes thereof. As a result, VSM is primarily a communication tool, but it can also be used as a tool for strategic process planning, as well as a change management tool.

learning to see value stream maps

Value-stream maps are the blueprints for lean transformations and Learning to See is an easy-to-read, step-by-step instruction manual that teaches this valuable tool to anyone, regardless of his or her background.

This groundbreaking workbook, which has introduced the value-stream mapping tool to thousands of people around the world, breaks down the important concepts of value-stream mapping into an easily grasped format. The workbook, a Shingo Research Prize recipient in 1999, is filled with actual maps, as well as engaging diagrams and illustrations.

The value-stream map is a paper-and-pencil representation of every process in the material and information flow, along with key data. It differs significantly from tools such as process mapping or layout diagrams because it includes information flow as well as material flow. Value-stream mapping is an overarching tool that gives managers and executives a picture of the entire production process, both value and non value-creating activities.  Rather than taking a haphazard approach to lean implementation, value-stream mapping establishes a direction for the company.

To encourage you to become actively involved in the learning process, Learning to See contains a case study based on a fictional company, Acme Stamping. You begin by mapping the current state of the value stream, looking for all the sources of waste. After identifying the waste, you draw a map of a leaner future state and a value-stream plan to guide implementation and review progress regularly.