Top 7 Common Mistakes while doing Value Stream Mapping
+ 2 Quotes and 1 Thought Provoking Image
1 Article for the Week:
Value Stream Mapping (VSM) is one of the most important tools in Lean Manufacturing and it helps in identifying the bottlenecks and plan for the Improvement projects.
Here are the Top 7 Common Mistakes people make while doing a VSM study.
Missing out on Important Data Points - Cycle time, Changeover time, WIP, etc.
Relying on the past data / data collected earlier by someone else
Observing ONLY the cycle times - and missing out on important observations like VA time, NVAs
Observing the processes in bits and pieces (over multiple days)
Splitting the observations among multiple team members - none of them will have a clear idea of the entire value stream
Focusing only on a Portion of the entire value stream - focusing only on a few sections / departments. - Won’t show the real picture of the entire Value Stream
Starting the VSM process without understanding the Product and the operations - lead to poor data collection and confusions while drawing VSM.
By doing a thorough VSM, we would be able to identify the bottlenecks and create a Future State VSM that improves the throughput and reduces Lead Time.
You can also learn more about VSM by watching this video.
2 Quotes for the Week:
"Make your workplace into showcase that can be understood by everyone at a glance. In terms of quality, it means to make the defects immediately apparent. In terms of quantity, it means that progress or delay, measured against the plan, and is made immediately apparent. When this is done, problems can be discovered immediately, and everyone can initiate improvement plans." ~ Taiichi Ohno
"Something is wrong if workers do not look around each day, find things that are tedious or boring, and then rewrite the procedures. Even last month's manual should be out of date" ~ Taiichi Ohno
1 Image for the week:
A thought proving note found in Reddit (credit to the author)
Thank You for reading!
Best Regards,
Ananth