VSM GENERAL

Description Value stream mapping is a lean manufacturing technique used to analyze and design the flow of materials and information required to bring a product or service to a consumer. At Toyota, where the technique originated, it is known as "material and information flow mapping". It can be applied to nearly any value chain. Value stream mapping is a key to achieve the most evolved lean principle PROBLEM SOLVING (continuous improvement and learning) which is continual organization learning through kaizen and making decision slowly by consensus, thoroughly considering al options. VSM is mostly related to eliminating PROCESS WASTE. It is implemented in the following way 1. Identify the target product, product family, or service. 2. Draw while on the shop floor a current state value stream map, which shows the current steps, delays, and information flows required to deliver the target product or service. This may be a production flow (raw materials to consumer) or a design flow (concept to launch). There are 'standard' symbols for representing supply chain entities. 3. Assess the current state value stream map in terms of creating flow by eliminating waste. 4. Draw a future state value stream map. 5. Work toward the future state condition. Value stream mapping is a supporting method that is often used in Lean environments to analyze and design flows at the system level (across multiple processes). A key metric associated with value stream mapping is time. It is drawn with a specific layout and recognized symbols for expression of the value chain within the company. Although value stream mapping is often associated with manufacturing, it is also used in logistics, supply chain, service related industries, healthcare software development, and product development.

ANALYSIS VSM does not equal flow analysis or the process of designing and creating optimum product flows. VSM is a simple tool to help operation managers and engineers (and others) understand how their flows currently operate and to help guide them through the process of analysis to improve those existing flows and design better ones in the future.

The issue of designing or creating lean product flow, however, is a much, much broader issue.VSM relates to that broader issue in that it is a tool to assist in that design. But, VSM as described in LTS ( learning to see) is only a beginning step in that regard. By lean product flow, referring to the material and information flows of the Toyota Production System (TPS). Among the key elements of TPS flow (the just-in-time pillar of TPS) is the concept you have been discussing: takt time. TAKT TIME , is NOT primarily for use on highly repetitive assembly lines And its primary purpose is certainly not for staffing determination . The purpose of takt time is, first and foremost, to serve as a management tool to indicate at a glance whether production is ahead or behind. It serves as an alignment tool, aligning proceeding with following processes, aligning resource requirements with demand, aligning corporate functions with real-time production needs. Pace maker strives to identify and break bottlenecks . But TPS(Toyota production system) does not allow a bottleneck to set the pace of the value stream. It is not compulsory to assign pacemaker to the process with highest bottleneck as there are many ways to deal with that problem. Many softwares are also available for mapping of VSM but the value in creating the drawings by hand is that it forces the drawer to go look, observe, and to try to really see what is going on at the value stream not just individual process level.