Learning to see & eliminate waste (Value Stream Mapping Learn-do Training)

A “Value Stream” may be a new phrase in your vocabulary. It represents all of the actions (both value added and non-value added), that are required to bring an end product from your suppliers, through your process, for delivery to your customers. It considers both the physical material flows, as well as the information flows necessary to make it happen.

Taking a value-stream perspective allows you to work on the big picture of your supply chain, rather than just the individual process steps. This enables you to improve the whole, rather than just optimising the parts. It shows the linkage between material flows and information flows, and the waste currently inherent in both.

Value Stream Mapping (VSM) begins with mapping your current state process. For many people in your business, this will be the first time that they’ve really seen, or understood, the total flow of material and information required to deliver a product to your customers.

If your leaders are not yet taking a total value stream view, “Silo thinking” may be prevailing. This is where teams will seek to optimise their particular process step, rather that the end-to-end business process. In doing this, they may well measure an “improvement” in their area, but it is unlikely that this will translate into an overall business benefit. This is often because the waste is just being moved or converted, rather than truly eliminated. When this silo thinking is replaced by “Value Stream thinking” (where managers are looking at the impact on the total value stream), we start to see what is required to sustainably improve the whole.

We call this development of the current state; “the awakening”, and it is typically the moment where teams truly start to see the waste in their process, as well as forming a passion to want to address it. This enthusiasm can however, still lead to misguided action. It is vital that the subsequent improvement work is properly prioritised and co-ordinated. To do this, we need a shared, and communicated vision of how we want our business to look in the future. We call this the “Future State Value Stream”. It provides an agreed vision and roadmap for improvement, which will align all teams and stakeholders towards a common goal.

This workshop will introduce your teams to the basics principles of Value Stream Mapping. Participants will receive expert guidance relevant to your industry, and will practice what they have learned on an interactive group case study. Having built confidence in the tool and the principles, your team will then apply these principles to create a detailed value stream map for a key product family in your business. Once your people have developed a current state value stream map and “learned to see”, they will have taken a key first step on your Operational Excellence Transformation (OET) journey.

Please see the table below for details of this course:

Capability Level

Practitioner

Course Name

Learning to see & eliminate waste: VSM

Course Duration

4 days

Maximum No. of Participants

12

Location

In-house at your site

Content & Costs

Contact us for further course information

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