A Method to Understand and Improve Your Engineering Processes Using Value Stream Mapping
This paper describes two ways of mapping engineering processes in product development—Value Stream Mapping (VSM) and a simplified variant of VSM—which are compared with Process Mapping (PM). PM is closely related to VSM but applied differently although th
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bstract This paper describes two ways of mapping engineering processes in product development—Value Stream Mapping (VSM) and a simplified variant of VSM—which are compared with Process Mapping (PM). PM is closely related to VSM but applied differently although the goal—to identify possible process improvements—is often the same. The results of the study indicate that simplified ways of doing VSM are the most feasible. They are easier to get started with, they have a higher potential for improvement of the process and one gets an instant overview of the mapped process. Further, it is more likely that the improvement will be implemented when the users are committed through their involvement in the mapping process. Keywords Value stream mapping
Process mapping Lean
M. Ström (&) Product Realization, Swerea IVF AB, 104 SE-431 22 Mölndal, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] G. Gustafsson G. Göransson Department of Product and Production, Development Chalmers University of Technology, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] G. Göransson e-mail: [email protected] I. Fritzell Volvo Car Corporation, SE-405 31 Gothenburg, Sweden e-mail: [email protected]
A. Chakrabarti and R. V. Prakash (eds.), ICoRD’13, Lecture Notes in Mechanical Engineering, DOI: 10.1007/978-81-322-1050-4_65, Ó Springer India 2013
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1 Introduction The increased global competition during the last decades, when quality and short time to market has been the key to survival, has forced companies to streamline their processes [1]. Since the discovery of Toyota’s superiority in quality and lead time in the nineties, many companies have turned to the lean philosophy as a potential solution to their needs [2]. From having had the initial focus on manufacturing, the lean movement has more recently spread to other functions like product development (PD) [3]. One lean method, Value Stream Mapping (VSM), see Sect. 3.2, has successfully been used to revamp manufacturing processes. By visualizing the production flow, VSM helps to map processes and identify wasteful activities and serve as an input for continuous improvement [4]. Wasteful activities and other problems detected when using VSM often fit into different categories of waste. Examples of such in PD are found in [3]. They are scatter, hand-off and wishful thinking. It is relevant to ask if VSM can also be applied to PD processes. However, PD consists of a flow of information rather than a flow of physical products. Information can exist in different versions and at different places simultaneously which makes mapping of a PD process different and more complicated. Furthermore, iterations that in manufacturing are considered as waste are in PD a natural part of the process. VSM therefore needs to be adapted in order to be applicable in a PD context. Traditionally, different kinds of processes were mapped using methods such as IDEF0 [5], Activity Diagrams of UML [6] or Event Process Chains [7]. The actual mapping was often carried out by a d
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