Value Stream

• Value Stream is a series of activities. 
• Starts with the Supplier and ends at the customer. 
• Wastes are explicit and hidden along this value stream. 

Components of Value Stream

• Flow of materials
• Transformation of raw materials into finished products/services
• Flow of information

Value Stream

This is for my own reference:

1. You are able to tell all the product / services your unit / vertical produces / offers.
2. You are able to map the products / services back to the teams (A 1-1 mapping or multiple teams that deliver a particular product / service. Efficiency decreases / time to market increases if there are multiple teams mapped to a product / service).

Flow efficiency

Value Stream Mapping (VSM) - How To

Value Stream Map: The Graphical Visualization of the Value Stream is called the Value Stream Map.

It shows the diagram of all the major steps involved in delivery a product or service from supplier to customer. 

How is it different from a Process Map?

It is a High-level process map, however with additional customer data, process data, information flows to get sense of where a value is added and where there is a waste.

It is used to:

1. Map flow
2. Understand dependencies
3. Identify and Understand sources of waste
4. Remove waste
5. Re-create an efficient process

* If you want to view a certain step in detail, you can then create a detailed process map for that particular process block.

What if you don't have hard data?

• Walk the process
• Observe
• Obtain estimates from people
• Get collective estimates of project team

VSM Limitations

Limitations of VSM:

1. Finding deficiencies and getting rid of them is not the way for improving performance of a system.

2.The definition of what a value stream is, is itself fuzzy:

a. It doesn't capture all specific actions

b. VSM should be typically applied to product, but often gets applied to product families with little guidance about what constitutes those families.

c. VSM is cumbersome when product variety is high and volume is low (Media team has more than 20 product / product families; and we are looking at only the 10 important activities in each stream, not looking at all the activities in each stream).