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Analysis of the Lean value stream map and the related data can reveal wasted resources; both people and product or service items that are being processed.
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Quick reference
Lean Resource Analysis
Analysis of the Lean value stream map and the related data can reveal wasted resources; both people and product or service items that are being processed.
When to use
Lean resource analysis is normally used during the Analyze phase to identify problems within the value stream. It relies on data collected during the Measure phase.
Instructions
Analysis of the Lean value stream map will include analyzing many aspects of the process. Some of these focus on the resources involved, both the people and the equipment or facility resources. These techniques will point to potential problems with the process.
- Inventory analysis. A common item tracked on the value stream map is the amount of inventory at each step in the process. Generally, we want low levels of inventory and we want them to move fast through the process. The inventory in the process is classified as Work In Process (WIP) for accounting purposes and high levels of WIP are a sign of poor process management. When inventory slows down and becomes bottlenecked at one spot in the process, that is a sure sign that there is a problem at that step. The nature of the problem is not clear, but we know it is at that step.
- Work cell design focuses on the use of the facility and how work is organized. A work cell approach is one where the operators have all they need to complete the entire value stream – that means all the equipment, tooling, procedures and training. They can operate as a small self-contained unit. But this normally requires highly skilled operators and duplicate equipment for each value stream. The other approach is to create centers of excellence within the facility. These centers house specialized equipment and use highly skilled operators to do a specific activity for value streams that need that type of activity. While this will often provide good yield and equipment utilization for the work in the center of excellence, it leads to very inefficient processes. The movement into and out of the center is non-value-added time and the most value streams find that their work is delayed as they wait for their turn to go through the processes at the center of excellence. Work cells and centers of excellence both have advantages and disadvantages. However, if an organization is adopting Lean principles, they will probably migrate to work cells. The analysis here is to first understand the organization’s approach and if work cells are used, be certain the work cell has everything they need. If not, the advantages of work cells are lost.
- When a Lean process uses equipment or systems that have multiple uses, either within the process or across multiple value streams, there is often some setup required to configure the equipment for a particular item and step. This setup activity is not value-added. There is no customer item being processed while setup is occurring. If the setup is long and complex, a great deal of time can be wasted with each setup. As we look to apply some of the Lean improvement approaches, long setup times will be a barrier. Therefore, the setup process needs to be analyzed because that may need to change before any other Lean improvements can be made. Determine how many setups are done in the process and can this be reduced by changing an element of the process flow. Also, determine the average amount of time to do a setup.
Hints & tips
- When doing setup analysis, it is often helpful to do a process map or value stream map of the setup work in order to identify the waste and inefficiency in that activity.
- Large batch processing will create problems for trying to do an inventory analysis within a process. Because there is lots of inventory at the step where the batch is located and as soon as it moves the inventory drops to zero. The only way to get a good understanding of this “feast or famine” effect is to collect data over a long period (for at least 20 batches) and then average the data.
- There is always a healthy debate over the center of excellence or work cell approach. When there are major financial outlays for capital equipment, the center of excellence approach usually wins. When there is a need for very fast and responsive processes, the work cell approach usually wins.
- 00:05 Hi I'm Ray Sheen.
- 00:06 I have one other set of analysis that I want to discuss with respect to your lean
- 00:10 process.
- 00:11 These are analysis that focus on saving resources or
- 00:15 at least making better use of them.
- 00:17 We'll start with the resource of inventory in the process.
- 00:21 In financial terms, inventory is an asset.
- 00:24 It's something that is sellable and converts to money.
- 00:27 Even if we are talking about an administrative process that isn't
- 00:30 creating a widget for sale.
- 00:32 The information moving through the process is an asset to the organization.
- 00:36 Having the right information available in a timely fashion,
- 00:39 should help the organization make better decisions.
- 00:43 In particular inventory that is within the process
- 00:45 is referred to as work in process or WIP inventory.
- 00:49 The thing about WIP is that while it has some value and
- 00:52 it has consumed some labor and materials.
- 00:54 It does not become fully useful to the organization until it gets
- 00:58 all the way through the process.
- 00:59 Until then, it is a stranded asset whose value cannot be realized.
- 01:05 One major culprit for
- 01:06 creating high levels of WIP inventory is large batch processing.
- 01:11 While one item in the batch is being worked the rest of the batch
- 01:14 is stranded inventory.
- 01:16 You might think that batch processing is more efficient, and it could be for
- 01:19 that one workstation.
- 01:21 It's often less sufficient from a process perspective
- 01:23 because of the stranded resources it creates.
- 01:27 So, one of your analysis should be to identify where WIP is accumulating in
- 01:31 the process.
- 01:32 That accumulated WIP will often be evidence of other problems
- 01:36 such as quality issues that cause the process to bug down.
- 01:39 Poor scheduling that creates uneven process flow or just poor processed design
- 01:45 which causes the process operators to constantly stop working and
- 01:48 ask permission to proceed.
- 01:51 Another area of resource utilization within the process is the work
- 01:54 cell design.
- 01:55 And when I'm talking about work cells, I'm talking about the facility and
- 01:59 systems that the operator uses to complete each step in the process.
- 02:04 For the design work cells leads to lots of process wasting,
- 02:08 non value added time as process items either moving all over the building.
- 02:12 Or operators are wandering around trying to find the next item and
- 02:16 often both of those are happening.
- 02:18 A common method of organizing the facility is to use the center of
- 02:22 excellence approach.
- 02:23 Where one room or department does a particular activity and all processes that
- 02:28 need that activity must go through that department and share its resources.
- 02:33 Examples are in a manufacturing organization where there is one area for
- 02:37 all testing.
- 02:38 Or an administrative department where there is one room for all copying.
- 02:41 The trouble of this approach is that the center of excellence an inevitably becomes
- 02:45 a bottleneck.
- 02:46 As multiple items arrive at the same time, one has to go first and
- 02:51 the others must wait, which is not value-added.
- 02:54 This approach may give the best utilization of that local equipment or
- 02:57 operators in the station, but it does so by slowing the entire process down.
- 03:02 Look for those centers of excellence in your work facility, and
- 03:06 see if they have plenty of capacity or if they're a choke point.
- 03:10 Also analyse the work cell itself to see if it has everything it needs.
- 03:14 Are all the equipments, tools, and systems required to do the work
- 03:18 conveniently located at the work cell where they are used?
- 03:22 Are the procedures, data, forms, reference standards and systems access available for
- 03:27 the operator while performing the work at the work cell.
- 03:30 And do the operators either individually or as a team
- 03:34 have the authority to complete the work at the work cell without needing to stop and
- 03:37 ask permission to proceed?
- 03:39 If the answer to any of these questions is no, then that work cell will contain some
- 03:44 level of non-value added time and activity which waste resources.
- 03:49 The third category of wasted resources is to analyze the setup and
- 03:53 changeover at steps.
- 03:55 When the same piece of equipment or system is used for multiple steps in the process
- 04:00 or is used to process multiple uniquely different items through the process.
- 04:05 The operator will often have to stop and setup the equipment for
- 04:08 the new step or new item.
- 04:10 That may mean loading a program or adjusting a setting, or
- 04:13 doing a cleaning of the equipment.
- 04:15 This changeover is non-value added effort by the process resource and
- 04:20 our goal is to minimize or eliminate the need for it.
- 04:23 But first we must do the analysis to understand the magnitude of the problem.
- 04:27 When you're capturing the value-added time and total time at a workstation,
- 04:32 often we just measure the time of working the item in the process.
- 04:35 And the changeover effort in time is ignored,
- 04:38 because there's no process using the workstation at that time.
- 04:41 But we are consuming resources, typically labor and
- 04:45 the equipment is idle from the standpoint of actually producing items.
- 04:48 Although I realize the equipment is not truly idle because
- 04:51 it's tied up while it was being changed over.
- 04:54 It's idle in the sense that it's not processing anything for a customer.
- 04:59 The analysis to be done here is to determine how much of the equipment and
- 05:02 operator time is being consumed by this non-value-added activity.
- 05:07 Determine how many changeovers are typically needed, and
- 05:10 the average amount of resources consumed setting up for the new process run.
- 05:14 These may need to be categorized between major and minor set ups or
- 05:18 different types of configurations.
- 05:21 Organizations have often created more large batch sizes to minimize the number
- 05:24 of change overs.
- 05:26 But large batch size create their own problems.
- 05:28 We need to understand this area, so that we can make the appropriate trade-offs
- 05:32 between batch size and changeover time and
- 05:35 effort, when we design a solution in the next Lean Six Sigma stage.
- 05:39 Lean Analysis is more than just optimizing the process cycle time.
- 05:45 It includes making wise use of process resources.
- 05:49 These analytical approaches help us understand how resources are consumed, and
- 05:54 sometimes stranded within the process.
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