Value stream management for lean officeWhat is value stream?Any activities or processes which are used to create value to the customer can be defined as a value stream. In any organization there are activities and processes which might be arranged in a certain order to fulfill the requirement of the customer. In a traditional organization similar functionalities will be arranged together. This is known as a departmentalized structure. Lean manufacturing in its efforts on removing non value added activities from the system identifies this value stream as the key to create value to the customer. Therefore every process will be mapped and then the value stream will be identified by arranging the activities one after the other in a logical order. Then it will be easier to understand the processes which really adds value to the customer and which does not. In non value added activities, we can have required activities and which are not required. First any lean manufacturer would look at the non value added avoidable or non required activities. They should be removed from the system to achieve the objectives of lean. This order of activities to create value to the customer is a good starting point for lean implementations. This way of thinking can be applied to physically change the working models and re arrange the responsibilities of each activity in a way that it directly relates to the customer requirement. By contrast to a traditional organization where activities are grouped by functions to achieve the efficiencies by function, a lean organization would arrange their resources by value stream to achieve the overall goal of value creation to the customer. This simplifies the processes by improving visibility and clarity of the requirement. Kanban techniques and other simple manufacturing techniques can be associated with this method of manufacturing to facilitate the information flow required for pull manufacturing. When these structures fall in to place management will be based on value stream not by function. this is what is known as value stream management. What is the usage of value stream management for lean office?Offices function in supporting rolls most of the occasions. In manufacturing context all the people in an office will be involved with a manufacturing function in direct or an indirect manner. So if you are lean manufacturer, it is very important to go beyond your manufacturing facilities and get in to the other support functions to make a lean organization. This is where the value stream management goes beyond the boundaries of manufacturing premises and reaches its front office and customer care units etc. A lean office must always be considered as a part of the value stream since the customer requirement fulfillment reaches beyond manufacturing and offices has a key role to play. When the management is done by value streams, every person in an office will belong to at least one value stream. In the ideal scenario every one in an office must be in a single value stream to make the value stream perfect. But in the practicality nature and the capacities of the job can be such that it can cater two or more value streams simultaneously. This will depend on the organizations requirements and customer requirements. |
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