Lean and Six Sigma - 2 - Value, Value Streams, Flow, Pull and Perfection

The central idea is to analyze process and improve it. That's why we need Process Analysts. What is process? Imagine it is a black box which we throw in inputs and it produces outputs. It is a series of actions or activities to transform one to another.

For example, customer order product A. The materials, resources will go through certain processes and then produce product A to customer. Not all processes are valuable to customers, such as project coordinator which has lesser value to customer. We firstly study what processes or activities have values to customers. Those that has no values to customers are considered wastes, such as revamping the website, rework of some jobs. What customers want eventually has values to customers as customers are only focusing on the end products. Working backward, customers' requirements pull the materials or resources from upstreams to downstreams. Customer's pulling cascades all the way back to the lowest level supplier, enabling just-in-time production. Value streams are how the materials, or information, or people flow. We want to know if there is over-processing of information, over-production of materials or keep too much inventory, etc. When we talk about flow, it actually involves time as main parameter. We can measure time as waiting time, process time, idle time, lead time etc. In manufacturing environment, we focus on how the materials are being processed, for example through machinery. However, software environment is different story because programmer produces codes. Programmers are human, which is hard to measure their work rate predictably liked machines. But, we can make sure the software development environment is set up in such a way that it helps programmers to do work more efficiently. I am interested to explore and map them in term of software environment as well as the relationship with CMMI.

Summary:

• Value - value-added activities, non-value added activities: necessary waste, pure waste
• Value Streams - all activities that create value
• 7 types of wastes: over-production, transportation, inventory, unnecessary movement, waiting, defective outputs, over-processing
• Process Map -> Value Stream Map
• Flow - product or service flowing through process, main metric: time
• Takt Time = (available time) / (customer demand rate for available time)
• Pull
• Kanban method
• Visual Control - Andon -> Isn't this liked SCRUM master remove the blocker promptly?
• Perfection - This is a journey, keep moving.

Reference: MIT Course: Introduction to Lean Six-Sigma Methods.