Value Stream Mapping: Maximize the Benefits

John McNeil, GP Deltapoint
 

Keyte and Locher make a bold assertion in their article: that ninety percent of waste-reduction opportunities lie in administrative processes. If this is true (and certainly ninety percent of opportunities in our experience at least are touched on by administrative issues), then firms are clearly misguided in their efforts as shown by the Industry Week survey responses, which tilt heavily towards manufacturing improvement. Even if ninety percent of improvements are not to be aimed at the office, a larger percentage should be than currently.

But how? White collar workers prize their independence and the freedom to do their work in their own chosen ways, unhindered by standards and measures. And over 100 years of effort since Taylor have been focused on improving the performance of production workers. These are clearly barriers to success, but an even taller hurdle is the inability of firms to follow the kinds of success factors listed in the last section of Keyte or indeed in the 13 steps of Ward and Poling. If we substitute "Value Stream Mapping" or indeed "Any kind of systematic large scale change process" for "Six Sigma", the same lessons apply.

With some minor variations, of course. Six Sigma is properly a pervasive, intense program that often relies on particular statistical skills that only a few of us are likely ever to grasp. Part of the role of Black Belts is to decide when to apply methods such as Designed Experiments, to apply them or help in doing so, and then to translate the results into accessible tables, charts and prose. Value Stream Mapping by contrast is fully accessible by all. Applied to its best advantage, it makes full use of fairly complex lean principles such as Pull and Load Balancing, but these have a somewhat intuitive appeal. Enough appeal that management may feel tempted to commit all the sins listed in the "current reality" sections of Ward and Poling. And fail, as a predictable consequence, to meet their expectations or their obligations for improvement.

With those warnings in mind, and a tip 'o the hat to Ward and Poling, here is a list of 13 imperatives for process improvement success at any organization; including yours...

• "Top management involved from the outset and leading the initiative";
• "Projects selected for strategic importance"
• "Project Champions with process knowledge trained to launch the initiative"
• "Project Champions own the project. Process Improvement Experts facilitate the project"
• "People with the best analytical, communication and abstract thinking skills trained as Process Improvement Experts"
• "Process Improvement Experts and other team members given time to work on the projects"
• "Project charters written carefully to reflect the goals, scope, boundaries and anticipated benefits"
• "Process Improvement goals achieved or exceeded within ninety days
• "Champions and project leaders working together to prevent the scope of the project from expanding to include additional problems or issues"
• "Champions an integral part of the project teams without dominating"
• "A training system involves everyone in the organization"
• "A council established to recommend and keep track of potential projects and prioritize them"
• "Process Improvement a path for building future and current leaders of the organization: part of their work"

Back to top of page