A recent study conducted by Eureka Ranch focused on work hours lost per day due to ineffective systems. The lost hours vary based on the company’s stage, ranging from growth to decline. From growth to plateau stage, the range is 75 to 151 minutes, averaging over 90 minutes per day. And if growth is declining, there is significantly more wasted time. Do you know what stage your company is in and where your hours are lost?
If you believe you are in “bad system mode,” VMEC can help!
Value Stream Mapping (VSM) reveals waste in your process whether it’s manufacturing, inspection, shipping, order intake, customer service or any cross-functional process. VSM is a planned event designed to develop the basic skills of seeing a process through a critical lens. The mapping must include people who are in the process as well as interested stakeholders. Using a case study approach, we’ll walk you through the steps and teach you how to see waste. Once we identify these wastes, we will use proven methods to solve and improve your processes. This technique is especially effective with enhancing cross-functional procedures that are critical to the business and where the solution is not obvious.
A Value Stream Mapping project with VMEC usually leads to two important benefits to the business:
- Significant process improvement – reduced lead time, better quality, less frustration, less wasted time and effort.
- Improved employee engagement and capabilities – participants are more able to see waste in and beyond their immediate process, use improvement tools and make meaningful changes.
In addition to usable current and future state maps of material and information flow created by the participants, projects deliver a prioritized list of supported improvement ideas and a path to achieving the future state. Value Stream Mapping engagements are tailored to the specific business and process that is being addressed, but the general framework includes:
- A planning session with senior management
- Value Stream Mapping process training, case study and current state process
- Validating the current state; during this time, there may be more direct observation and data gathering, as well as sharing the current state drawing with people who weren’t in the room.
- Collect problems and ideas from participants using facilitated brainstorming with Lean concepts and tools. Ask important questions such as: what problems do we see?, what could we change?, what do we want this process to look like in the future?
- Draw an aspirational ‘future state’; this includes what the process could be if the problems were solved and the ideas implemented.
- Develop a prioritized list of tasks that must be accomplished to get from the current state to the future state.
- Work with participants to identify teams (and team leads) to carry out the changes that have been identified.
- Finally, invite key people who were not part of the VSM sessions to attend a short debrief so that they can see what the teams will be working on.
Contact us today to find out how we can help you find those lost hours!