Untangle the war on waste

Makers of string, brown paper and Post-Its should be grateful to the exponents of value stream mapping (VSM). The walls of training rooms and boardrooms worldwide are decorated with their products as companies set about providing a realistic picture of their operations. I recently saw one stretching the full height and length of three walls. The person charged with circulating it in written form was photographing it with his mobile phone, since he knew he'd never reassemble it in the right order if he tried to do it 'on the flat'. And the whole thing made as much sense as one of those randomly generated messages that crop up in spam boxes. As anyone who uses or teaches VSM will tell you, it doesn't have to be like this. In fact, it shouldn't be like this. Productivity Europe's Malcolm Jones points out that before the lean gurus invested it with mystique, it was a simple tool used routinely by Toyota's engineers. It wasn't even called VSM. They simply drew maps - often on bits of scrap paper - that recorded the current physical flow of a product and highlighted areas that could be improved. Then, in 1998, Mike Rother and John Shook of the University of Michigan recorded Toyota's mapping methodology for the first time in Learning to See, gave it a name and a whole new industry was born. "It was a way of thinking," says Jones. "Toyota had simply developed its engineers to use certain principles to support their work - and their key insight was the need to synchronise the information and materials flow." Disconnection He points out simple contradictions in many factories. For example, it is fundamental to lean operations only to pull material onto the shopfloor when it is needed. If, however, your IT disrupts this flow by giving you only daily material requirements, you have created a problem. It's a lot more efficient if the material can carry its own information through kanbans or electronic tags. VSM is invaluable in spotting these disconnects, but Jones also thinks that people sometimes ask for it in the most inappropriate circumstances because they believe it's trendy and therefore desirable without necessarily understanding what it does. So let's go back to basics. In essence, VSM is an elegantly simple way of mapping these two important things in basic, storyboard form. In one direction, it pictures how material moves from delivery in its raw state, through all the factory processes until it arrives as finished goods with the customer. In the other, it maps the flow of information back along the entire supply chain from customer to manufacturer, from manufacturer to supplier and along the company's internal processes from control to execution. So far, so simple? During and between every process, the team notes important facts and figures: inventory, yield, time taken, changeover time, etc. The result should be an accurate picture of the current state of production. It should also flag up where waste is happening in the so-called 'value stream' - a chain of activities in which each adds value to the customer offering. It provides a firm basis for developing the ideal future state and - as a separate stage - detailed, practical plans to get there. We'll look at that in a moment. At this point, however, old hands might be forgiven for scratching their heads and muttering they were doing something similar eons ago. Indeed you were, and so was I. String diagrams showing the distance travelled and frequency in a specific process have been around for years. As were other forms of process mapping (PM), using simple pictures to show the route from A to B of everything from orders to components to finished goods. No black magic therefore attaches to VSM: it is simply a variant of these old tools that gives a larger overview. Simple summary Also contrary to the expectations of some, VSM should not be a long, arduous slog. People usually learn it quickly and it is common for professionally steered workshops to come up with a useful first-pass in a couple of days. But there are still ample opportunities for people to make it tortuously difficult if they are determined to do so. "What VSM does really well is summarise a factory on one sheet of paper," explains TBM Consulting's Richard Holland. "But to do that, you have to go up in the helicopter and not record as much detail as you would in a process map. If you create something so spaghetti-like you can't communicate it, then you've lost the plot." He maintains that, although both tools are there for discovery and communication, and both let you create the desired future state, only the process map should be used for the nuts and bolts. "On a VSM you want to understand what is driving the movement of material, when it moves through process steps or a store and what's the summary level of that process step. So you will have one box representing a cell together with its performance attributes. Whereas in a process map you'd actually follow the movement of that material round a cell and document all the things happening to it." So he uses VSM for planning and identifying where improvements are needed at plant level and process maps to identify the specific changes needed at cell level. Many consultants wrap the PM stage up in kaizen events, using brainstorming and a range of problem-solving techniques to arrive at the detail plan. For example, TBM used VSM with its electronics client Molex to identify a bottleneck with product changeovers. It then ran a kaizen event to delve into the reasons and potential solutions. As a result, process cycle time was reduced by 50%. Holland insists the 'helicopter view' must come first. "You can't go off improving certain parts of the business without knowing where it's needed most." Taking the high level view, however, doesn't necessarily mean it's confined to top-level personnel. "We usually want operators and managers on the same team doing VSM. I have never had a problem with the shopfloor understanding it and being able to put it together. You just have to be very clear on the guidelines." Holland insists there is, however, no substitute for PM in documenting and understanding specific business processes like order handling. Again, he works with a cross functional team, firstly teaching the PM concept and then going through every aspect - people, screens, data entry and handovers - right the way down to the start of production. "When it appears on the wall, it is often the first time that people have seen the reality. They often know their bit but not the whole process. Also, we find that they assume the next step but they don't really know what happens." Let's take a look at VSM versus PM in practice. Both examples come from companies who have chosen to work with regional 'arms' of MAS (Manufacturing Advisory Service) in analysing and implementing their business improvements. Since its creation in 2002, MAS has carried out over 18,000 site reviews and completed 5,000 consultancy projects with UK manufacturers and, rare among government initiatives, has earned support across the board. EEF's Martin Temple, for example, regards it as the benchmark for business support schemes: "It is simple, practical, easy to administer and access. Most importantly, it delivers tangible results on the bottom line." The first is Siemens Automation and Drives in Congleton, a winner in last year's Best Factory Awards. This 420-strong plant has always taken the continuous improvement (CI) message seriously. Fourteen CI teams operating across the shopfloor typically deliver six-figure savings year on year. In 2004, however, it looked for a major 'leap forward' to combat any potential threat of outsourcing by focusing hard on lean activity. The initial 'surprise' for Congleton's management was not that lean offered performance improvements, but how much potential for lean improvement was still present within the site. As Adrian Webster, lean co-ordinator, observes: "The site had been using a number of lean techniques, such as SMED and 5S, for years. But, as we quickly discovered, this is a long way from adopting lean manufacturing and we were far from being lean." Reality check These distinctions, along with a significant insight into the level of waste and unnecessary cost still present, were brought home to the senior management team when it undertook a VSM exercise as the first stage of the new lean programme. For instance, this highlighted an internal lead time of 10 days, yet actual processing time was found to be just 41.5 minutes. This was a rude awakening, as Peter Rogers, process improvement practitioner with MAS North West, explains: "The VSM current state map identified there was no real process flow through the plant. Instead, a number of the plant's major production areas had clearly become islands of excellence, delivering high OEE and quality but between which large batches of products were moved. This lack of flow between the main areas was creating unnecessarily high levels of WIP and long lead times. "The mapping results were something of a shock for the management team. But such a reaction is not uncommon to this exercise. There is still a general lack of awareness within senior management ranks, in companies of all sizes and performance levels, as to what lean is really about, and how much waste and lost capacity is typically hidden by poor process flow throughout an organisation." Lean awareness programmes took the early part of 2005. Having established the foundations, however, the lean steering committee revisited the initial mapping process to determine the main barriers to making products flow through the shopfloor. It identified 10 key projects that would reduce WIP, cut lead time and improve productivity. It tackled them alongside MAS using a variety of conventional lean approaches including SMED, single piece flow, and through the introduction of cellular manufacturing as well as new maintenance procedures. "We are now well up the other side of the learning curve and starting to really gain the expected output and productivity gains from the cells," says Webster. "Even before all the corrective actions were put in place, a rough estimate showed a 17% increase in productivity, compared to the lines before any changes were made, and we expect that to be much higher now. More to the point, we are meeting a demand level through the cells, which would have required nightshifts across all four of the old lines." This story illustrates the very real ability of VSM to reveal the black holes in established processes. It shows you where to shine the light but it doesn't necessarily teach you what to do in it. If VSM is the 'where', PM is one of most effective 'how to' techniques, as the story of Chem Resist, in Dewsbury shows. This 32-strong company approached Yorkshire and Humber MAS to solve a recognised problem of poor efficiency in its vessel fabrication and assembly area. MAS advisors Professors David Little and David Hall launched an extensive process mapping exercise measuring each step in both real time and as a percentage of the overall manufacturing process. It revealed a clear bottleneck in fabricating the base and lid. They were cut using a jigsaw following a marked line. It was both slow and difficult to maintain accuracy. Often a second process was needed to plane out deviations. The simple solution was a CNC router (partly funded through a capital grant made available through MAS) that has reduced fabrication time from a full week to eight hours. Both companies achieved tangible results without drowning in a sea of complexity. Instead it took teamwork, a willingness to question everything they had previously taken for granted and the right analysis tool - VSM for one, PM for the other - for the job.