The VSM System
A Door-to-Door Guide to Value Stream Mapping for Manufacturing Managers, Continuous Improvement Leads, and Plant Managers
You ran the kaizen events. The lead time chart did not move. One year. Three or four kaizen events. Standard work on the wall. Visual management boards installed. The metrics dashboard prettier than ever. And the door-to-door lead time, the number that actually decides whether the customer is happy and whether the cash cycle works, sits within a couple of percent of where it started. This is not a station problem. It is a stream problem. Lean done one station at a time produces a faster bottleneck and slower everything else. Lean done one stream at a time produces a faster door-to-door lead time and a quieter floor. The VSM System is the methodology behind the discipline: the why behind every symbol on the map, the math behind takt time and the lead-time ladder, and the design rules that turn a current-state map into a future-state map you can actually deliver in 90 days. Inside: The Case for Mapping, VSM Anatomy, The Eight Wastes (TIMWOODS), Mapping the Current State, Takt and Cycle and Lead Time, Designing the Future State with five design rules in order, Kaizen Bursts and Prioritization, Running a Mapping Session, Sustaining the Map, and Common Pitfalls and Recovery. Features the Continental Precision Fabricators worked example: a privately-held stainless steel fabricator, eight value-add operations, a shared bottleneck. Over twelve weeks, door-to-door lead time goes from 19 days to 8.4 days (a 56% reduction). With an honest retrospective. Pairs with the Value Stream Mapping Workbook by Wade Prescott. The guide is the thinking. The workbook is the doing.
View on AmazonYou ran the kaizen events. The lead time chart did not move. One year. Three or four kaizen events. Standard work on the wall. Visual management boards installed. The metrics dashboard prettier than ever. And the door-to-door lead time, the number that actually decides whether the customer is happy and whether the cash cycle works, sits within a couple of percent of where it started.
This is not a station problem. It is a stream problem. Lean done one station at a time produces a faster bottleneck and slower everything else. Lean done one stream at a time produces a faster door-to-door lead time and a quieter floor.
The VSM System is the methodology behind the discipline: the why behind every symbol on the map, the math behind takt time and the lead-time ladder, and the design rules that turn a current-state map into a future-state map you can actually deliver in 90 days.
Inside: The Case for Mapping, VSM Anatomy, The Eight Wastes (TIMWOODS), Mapping the Current State, Takt and Cycle and Lead Time, Designing the Future State with five design rules in order, Kaizen Bursts and Prioritization, Running a Mapping Session, Sustaining the Map, and Common Pitfalls and Recovery.
Features the Continental Precision Fabricators worked example: a privately-held stainless steel fabricator, eight value-add operations, a shared bottleneck. Over twelve weeks, door-to-door lead time goes from 19 days to 8.4 days (a 56% reduction). With an honest retrospective.
Pairs with the Value Stream Mapping Workbook by Wade Prescott. The guide is the thinking. The workbook is the doing.
