As James? Womack and Dan? Jones emphasize in the recommended preface to their book Learning Insights, improvement and lean can only be most effective if they are strategically applied to the value stream. In using the important tool of value stream mapping, business managers and lean practitioners alike need to have a clear understanding of the company's strategic goals: expand sales? Increase profits? Increase cash flow? Increase customer satisfaction? Increase shareholder equity? Or something else?
Choosing a product is very important, there are several guiding matters. First, the best choice of products in the enterprise accounted for a relatively large proportion of the business, such as the enterprise, a year of sales revenue of 100 million, try to choose products and services have 20 million, 30 million or so, and do not go to select the income of less. Second, the products and services of all steps are listed, try to choose the steps are almost the same, similar, then in the analysis of the value stream, the analysis is not only a product and service, but similar to 2 or 3 products.
Famous Lean master Mike Rosser and John Shook in his book "Learning to Observe" selected two products, one called left steering bracket and right steering bracket. These two products are subtly different, but their processing steps and the equipment used are identical.
After determining which product line or service to analyze and improve, we can choose a value stream. There are macro and micro value streams. Large ones can span the entire company, or multiple companies including suppliers. Of course, it can also be small, for example, the processing of sheet metal materials, starting from steel plate, and stamping into one piece of parts, which is more of a process value stream. Here we recommend that you just start as far as possible to choose a single factory, that is to say, from door to door, from the customer to start picking up the goods, to the front of the supplier to send the parts to the enterprise's incoming, incoming door.
After selecting the value stream to be studied, we need to designate a value stream manager, responsible for the entire process of delivering the product from the supplier to the customer, through cross-functional and departmental campaigns to promote change, and organizing the value stream team to draw the current and future state value stream map to develop the implementation plan, and the value stream manager should also be to the top management of the enterprise to report directly on the progress. Once the value stream manager has been identified, the relevant value stream team should be formed. For example, Erlanger wants to improve the business development in the last two years, for the subway service product line, to understand the customer from identifying the project to design, and then from bidding to win the bid, and then deliver the product to the customer, the installation is completed. There are still a lot of opportunities for improvement throughout the process, so I appointed a senior colleague who has been working for more than 10 years and knows a lot about Lean and planning to be the value stream manager. At the same time we work together to select members of the value stream team, which includes sales, order management, production planning, technology, product managers, service engineers, etc., as well as from time to time to invite our agents and customers to participate.
Value Stream Manager
The person who has clear responsibility for the successful operation of the entire value stream. The Value Stream Manager is the architect of the value stream, defining value from the customer's perspective and should be committed to creating a continuous improvement value stream.
The value stream manager is concerned with organizing and allocating the activities and resources that create value, although no fixed resource (money, equipment, people) really "belongs" to the value stream manager. Therefore, the value stream manager needs to separate his own responsibilities from the authority of the resource management function. The role of the function is to provide the necessary resources to realize the value stream as envisioned by the value stream manager. The value stream manager has to lead through influence. Therefore this approach can be equally effective in either a traditional functional or a matrix organization. It avoids the problems of unclear responsibilities and the inability to make effective decisions that often occur in matrix organizations. --From Lean Thesaurus, Fifth Edition
When mapping the current state, the value stream manager and team members need to understand the current process steps, the current service flow, and the beat times.
There are several key points in mapping the current state of value stream mapping:
① Getting out into the field, going to the site (shop floor, warehouse, call center, after-sales service department, pharmacy in a hospital, counter at a bank, checkout counter in a supermarket, and so on) to understand how the materials go, and how the information flows, to understand the current processing and production steps, the current service processes, the beat times of the assemblies, and so on.
②The material how to go, and how the information flow, understand the current processing production steps, the current service process, assembly beat time, etc.
② Drawing icons, a map of a thousand words, you can put some numbers, words, but more often use the map to indicate. When drawing on site, pay attention to the information flow and logistics should be clearly drawn.
③ Physically, the value stream manager has to lead the team members themselves to collect information, draw with a pencil, and be ready to revise at any time.
④ Modesty, everyone working in the field should introduce themselves to the staff we are here to learn, do the project, and hopefully make our whole process smoother, find opportunities to implement improvements, and make our customers more satisfied.
⑤Teamwork, when drawing in the field you can share the process, results and staff, colleagues show, listen to the feedback, see if there is any omission, and then put the collected information summarized in a general picture. For example, as mentioned above, our value stream manager goes to each department to collect and understand the information, writes it into a small note, and puts it on the wall of the office, which is a sketch, and he is still in the process of fixing it, collecting and drawing it. After the first draft came out to calculate the product delivery time, calculate the process of the real time is how much, and then show the whole process to more members.
When reporting the performance to the team members and relevant leaders, the whole process of drawing, the main information collected and the main content of the diagram should be introduced to everyone. While presenting what possible problems were found, listen to your colleagues' comments on what was missed and what additional comments were made.
Once the mapping is complete, it's time to move on to the next stage, future state mapping (having our organization, lean managers, etc., design a process for improvement). The future state map is a blueprint for eliminating waste and adding value. In the beginning, management and value stream managers should not expect perfection in the short term, but rather advocate a little bit of improvement every day, so that a little goes a long way and no money is spent. When mapping the future state, try to stick to a little bit of how improvements can be made on the existing equipment, and of course we can move equipment, adjust assembly lines, and so on.
The value process map is an indispensable tool in the introduction and implementation of Lean, if we can not summarize the process of drawing the value process map from the various opportunities for improvement to be implemented, the value process map is just embroidered pillow: good-looking no matter how useful.
In the development and implementation of the improvement plan, the value stream manager and the team should at least take into account:
① plan and business objectives linked together, your business is to serve which type of customer, customer requirements for finished products, quality, safety, etc., the pursuit of the enterprise is to maximize profits, production maximization, or customer satisfaction, and so on.
② the future state of the decomposition of the "value stream ring" for improvement, because the value stream may involve the transportation department, purchasing department, planning department, workshop A, workshop B, and so on. Break these down so that more people can be involved. Break down each of the challenges and opportunities they identify, and then meet the goals of the organization and the requirements of the customer.
③ Preparation of value stream improvement plan: when to do? Who is responsible? How to do a good job?
④ to the future state map and where the origin of the connection, the factory floor to put the equipment, tools, where the people are located, where the product is located can be mobilized, especially assembly-oriented enterprises. One of the things to do is to go to the site more often and communicate with the team, and communicate with the people in the value stream, to get their understanding and support, and can find out the waste, the causes, and then make improvements.