Useful Resource - The Basics: How To ...: Create Value Stream Maps in Excel

Download FREE! My Microsoft Excel VSM Creator. Edit it to your needs.
Download FREE My Royalty FREE Graphics! My own made basic VSM graphics.

So WHY use Value Stream Mapping techniques? VSM is arguably the most powerful method of documenting & displaying an entire series of events for a result. It helps document the complete big picture. Popularised by Lean Thinking by James Womack and Daniel Jones, or Learning to See by Mike Rother and John Shook, VSM is great for visually representing a current situation, identifying root causes and options for going forward, showing both material/digital product flow & information flow. So WHY use this template? Working with my Lean Thinking Sensei, Peter Bruch: Works Director of Tews Engineering, & Frank Gill: Supplier Continuous Improvement of Pratt & Whitney, we wanted a a way to formalise a map with common office applications. I created these series of VSM graphics & this MS Excel VSM Tool to allow exactly that! With the advantage of calculatable cells, here it is FREE for you to download & use immediately.

HOW to Value Stream Mapp & using my Excel tool
Operation 1: With a Lean Practisioner / Continuous Improvement Leader, organise a Value Stream Mapping event and gather all the people who would be involved in the Value Stream; i.e. from Customer Order to Delivery.

Operation 2: Together as a team, use post-it notes to write out each activity and inventory build/waiting involved & start to place them down on a large surface in order which they occur. This will eventually become your "Current State Value Stream Map". The traditional method is to place the final Customer at the top right & then work your way backwards. You may find it easier going from Customer to the beginning of your process instead.

Operation 3: Review the laid out Value Stream Map and add as much data as you can. Examples of data to consider includes:

• Cycle Time
• Change-Over Time
• Processing Time
• Uptime
• Yield

Alternative Operation 3: Draw the Value Stream Map by hand to record it.

Operation 4: Use my Excel tool, donwloadable via this page to build a digitised version for your reports and automatic calculations of the data. It's easy! Simply copy & paste from the templates tab what you need!

1. For process boxes, customer/supplier boxes and inventory: from the VSM template worksheet, select the two entire columns which surround the element and then copy and paste the columns into the VSM Blank worksheet.
2. For other icons: from the VSM template worksheet, simply select the icon needed and copy and paste into the VSM Blank worksheet. You can then move them around as desired.
3. For material/information arrows: there are two options. Either using the premade arrows from the VSM template worksheet, or simply use the standard MS Excel arrow drawing tool to create your own. Thick arrows can be made by setting the weight of the arrow to around 10pt.

Operation 5: Review the entire Value Stream and identify opportunities for improvement via removing non-value adding waste activities and other means, thereby creating the potential "Future State Map". Document these ideas with "kaizen burst" post-it notes around the Value Stream Map. Examples may include:

• Concurrent design activities (e.g. technical design with design for manufacture).
• Consolidating multiple review gateways when performed by the same people every time.
• Building in flow into the process to minimise build up of inventory of data in between the Value Stream.
• Excessive travelling between processes.

Remember, in reality it'll be much faster and easier to perform the "Future State Map" from the hand drawng or post-it note version first. If using the post-it note it is worth performing the Alternate Operation 3 so that it is documented before you go about making any changes. Be prepared to make plenty of alterations as your develop your maps. Good luck!

Download FREE! My Microsoft Excel VSM Creator. Edit it to your needs.
Download FREE My Royalty FREE Graphics! My own made basic VSM graphics.