Map the value stream (VSM), current and future
Follow a product from order to delivery, measure where it waits and design with the team a future flow with its plan.
The task in figures
- Gives you back
- It does not recur every month
- Elmira today
- Helps
- Frequency
- Per project
- Who does it today
- Senior
- Version
- Elmira Senior
What hurts today.
The map stays on the wall, and the future state never arrives.
Taking the data on the floor takes days.
The map’s improvements have no owner and no date.
The value stream map follows a product family from the moment the customer orders it until it is delivered, with each process, its cycle time, the inventory between them and the information that moves it. It shows that almost all of the lead time is waiting. Someone with lean experience maps it, on the floor and with a stopwatch, and then designs with the team a future state, with the improvements that make it possible. That is usually where it stops: the future state’s plan gets lost in a slide deck.
Done today with
- In-person meeting
- On the floor
- Paper and whiteboard
- Spreadsheet
- Diagramming tool
- Project tool
Each step, today and with Elmira.
You map it yourself, on the floor. Elmira sets down each improvement of the future state as an action with its owner and its date, and tells you how the plan is going; when one falls behind, Obeyaka tells its owner on its own.
| Step | Today | With Elmira |
|---|---|---|
| Walk the flow on the floor, from the customer backwards | On the floor | Your call |
| Take each process’s data: cycle time, inventory and people | On the floor, Spreadsheet1 h – 4 h | Still by hand |
| Draw the current state map | Paper and whiteboard, Diagramming tool1 h – 3 h | Still by hand |
| Design the future state with the team | In-person meeting, Paper and whiteboard1 h – 3 h | Still by hand |
| Turn each improvement of the future state into an action with an owner and a date | Spreadsheet, Project tool15 min – 45 min | |
| Follow the plan until the future state is reached | In-person meeting, Spreadsheet15 min – 45 min | Automatic |
The conversation
- Tomás, lean coach
Elmira, the line 2 VSM shows the pallet waits two days between Packaging and Shipping. Felipe Díaz should set up a half-shift supermarket between the two, by November 6.
Create the action “Set up a half-shift supermarket between Packaging and Shipping”
Goal: Cut the lead time
Team: Production
Responsible: Felipe Díaz
Due on November 6, 2026
- Tomás, lean coach
Approve
Done: I created the action “Set up a half-shift supermarket between Packaging and Shipping”.
Does this happen to your team?
Book a demo and we will show you Elmira doing this task.
More cases of processes and standards
- Audit compliance with the standard (layered audits)The results stay on paper nobody adds up.
- Run the 5S audits and follow up their findingsThe order lasts until the next audit.
- Map a process end to end (SIPOC)“The process” means something different to each person.