Cycle times, value stream mapping, inventory, average values?

[qualprod]

Hello everybody

Im starting to do some VSM analysis and have some questions, could you help me?

For example, I decided, to analyze 2 specific products= A and B

This products are produced twice a month.

I will try to capture data of the work orders belonging to A and B
I also will consider the amount of raw materials coming from supplier within the month.

In order to do a good evaluation, should I have to run several analysis?
I mean to try a least 4 or 10 work orders of each, in order to have more data to analyze? and at the end to have an average of all values
of the total wok orders?
Once I have the average values I may start to draw my initial VSM?
in the average will be considered, cycle times, changover, # of workers, waiting times,etc.
Please give some feedback.

Thanks

 

[TKaplan]

Qualprod,

I read a bit of your previous posts, and thought I might chime in a bit on this one.

First of all, a VSM is a "Value Stream Map". In order to create one you will need to definitely separate your processes into categories, as you discussed in your other post with Ninja and a few others. Once that is done, YES, you will need to do multiple events of time studies to develop a good baseline time standard for each event. How many times? Well, that depends on you. How accurate do you want to be?

Determining how accurate you need to be can be as simple as understanding how large scale you expect the deviations to be.

Regarding cycle times. I know you have been through that discussion here recently, and I won't rehash that one. There is one more time that you need to be considering, and that is "Takt Time". Takt Time is the maximum amount of time you can spend on one product in order to satisfy customer demand. To understand your efficiency, you need to understand the takt time and how it compares to your cycle times.

I'll pause here for now. I wish you luck with your project!