Value Stream MappingStep by Step (Part 2)

On holiday Monday, as I slipped and fell backwards onto the rocks
with the excitement of catching my first crab, blood started
gushing from my pinkie.

I thought to myself, this is far more fun than Value Stream Mapping!

My youngest daughter looked on, with both horror and mild amusement.I, of course, got up as if nothing had
happened; holding back the tears like a big Jessie!

Translation: “Jessie”: A Scottish man who cries at Weddings.

Anyway, enough of my domestic challenges, and let’s take you through Value Stream Mapping step by step.

As we go through this technique, there are links which you will need to use when prompted.

I’m only going to take you through creating the “Current State” map.

Creating the “Future state” map uses the exact same steps and I’m sure you intelligent people can figure this
out for yourselves.

I suggest you work through this information at your leisure familiarising yourself with the material as you go along.

To help the learning process I’m going to create a Value Stream Map for of a fictitious organisation.

I’m keeping this Value Stream Map very simple!

The Organisation processes customer application forms and has various departments.

1. Fee taking - Takes payment from customer

2. Data Entry - Enters customer details onto a computer system

3. Case working - reviews customer application form

4. Despatch - Sends out customer information

Preparation

The first thing we need to do is to gain an understanding of the various Mapping Symbols.

Just click on the link to get a picture of them. Have a look!

Value Stream Mapping Symbols

Experiment

If you want to follow along with me as we build up the map just get a piece of A4 paper and a pencil.

Step

 


We add a process box at the top centre of our map.

 

Step

We want to show some data about our first department. This can be anything we want,
but to keep things simple we are going to show the time the process takes to process
one application form. i.e. the Cycle Time.This department (like all the others) updates a
central database.

Step

Build up the rest of the Map as shown.

Note we have a ”push” process at each stage which is reflected with the “push” symbol.

We also show the final delivery to the customer.

Step

Finally, we can add the overall lead time for the process and the actual departmental processing times.

Step

Your simple Value Stream Map is now complete.

That was not so bad, was it?

Next Steps

Obviously we can add a lot more detail if required.
 
There are many more symbols we could have used if we had a more complicated situation to Map.

You can basically add anything you like to your Map.

Marking up "potential areas for improvement" in red can be a useful addition in preparation for creating
the "Future State Map".

Have fun with it.

Hope this helps.

Best regards,

Graham Ross

Back to Lean Kaizen Articles