Simple approach for Value Stream Mapping for business process analysis

In order to achieve fast deliveries via short lead times, companies have to look for different manufacturing possibilities. Inherently, Value Stream Mapping (VSM) aids in identifying waste in manufacturing processes as well as related business processes focusing on minimizing possible time wastages. There is a trade-off between costs vs. shorter manufacturing or overall lead time. The main challenge is the elimination of waste to shorten overall manufacturing or business process (BP) time and related costs. The VSM has been conventionally utilized for manufacturing process analysis. It is typically observed that personnel in industrial organizations trying to optimize the overall price and lead time focus only on manufacturing related waste reduction. There are significant wastages generated from overall BP, which also directly or indirectly influence lead time to move beyond the anticipated threshold limits. Hence, this manuscript puts effort into developing a simple approach for VSM for analyzing and investigating drawbacks in the overall BP. A case study has been performed in collaboration with an aircraft-spare-parts manufacturing firm (AMF). A simple approach has been developed using the case study to investigate the inefficiencies present in the quotation preparation process (QPP). In addition to the approach, the resulting current state map (CSM), future state map (FSM), lead time (LT), processing time (Tp), process cycle efficiency (PCE), value added activity improvement (VAI) and non-value added activity improvement (NVAI) have all been analyzed.