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Value Stream Mapping in Visio – Using Custom Stencils
Value Stream Mapping is an increasingly popular method of capturing the material and information flows of a given process through a factory or office environment – it’s a great tool for highlighting process issues or bottlenecks and is often used in the early stages of an improvement activity to capture the as is state of the business activity. Many improvement executives like to capture value stream maps digitally, either during the mapping activity or once the map has been captured on paper. There are a variety of options for those wanting to do this either through dedicated value stream mapping software or though using one of the popular Microsoft Office tools. Using a Microsoft Office tool has a number of benefits in that the user interface is quite common for those that are familiar with the office package and it has a wide support network.
When it comes to Microsoft Office – Microsoft Visio is a dedicated tool for producing business process maps but support has only recently been added to support Value Stream Mapping (You’ll have to get the Visio 2007 Professional edition if you want this functionality).
Prior to this, for those wanting to digitally capture their Value Stream Maps this has meant either using a 3rd party application instead of Visio or through using an add on stencil from a 3rd party provider.
Visio is widely supported through an extensive network of 3rd party application vendors and enthusiasts and there are plenty of 3rd party developed stencils available including some which support Value Stream Mapping.
Once you’ve located a stencil that fits your needs – adding it to Visio is a fairly simple affair
1. Save the file to a location on your computer
2. Open Visio and use the File – Shapes – Open Stencil Menu option
3. Import the Stencil
The Stencil should now be available to use and the traditional Visio method of dragging and dropping shapes can be used to construct your map.
Most 3rd party Value Stream Mapping Visio Stencils include support for common icons including Customer and Supplier icons, Process Icons and icons for mapping information and material flow. Many of these can be annotated with custom text to represent the process being mapped.
Using drag and drop the value stream map can be constructed quite quickly – there are numerous benefits to doing this in that if mistakes are made it’s easily rectifiable and the as-is map can be used as the basis for producing a future state map.
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Source by Steve R Martin
