Dec 7 2020
More About VSMs From Jeffrey Liker
Thanks to Jeffrey Liker for providing additional details on the transformation of this tool. Initially, Toyota used it occasionally with suppliers. The Lean Enterprise Institute (LEI) turned it into the Value Stream Maps (VSM) that it has promoted as foundational to Lean.
Contents
From TSSC to Ford, Delphi, and the LEI
In comments on yet another discussion of Value Stream Mapping (VSM) on LinkedIn, Jeffrey Liker contributed the following details I wasn’t aware of when I wrote Where do “Value Stream Maps” come from?:
Originally it was developed by OMCD to use with suppliers, then brought by Hajime Ohba to the Toyota Supplier Support Center (TSSC) that taught it to Chuck Ward from the Toyota Kentucky plant. He then went to Ford as a consultant and taught it to Mike Rother. Mike and John Shook brought it to Delphi. It was the basis for Learning To See and they called it Value Stream Mapping. Toyota then called it the Material and Information Flow Diagram. It is sometimes but not often used inside Toyota.
The OMCD the Toyota’s Operations Management Consulting Division, a group started by Taiichi Ohno and in existence since at least 1975. Chuck Ward left Toyota in 1995 and therefore learned it before then. Learning to See, Version 1, came out in 1998.
How The OMCD Used The Tool
Jeffrey then provided additional details on the way OMCD used this tool:
The OMCD –elite corps of TPS experts that Ohno set up and its main focus was teaching TPS to suppliers through model line projects to bring one line of the supplier to a dramatically higher level of cost-quality-lead time.
The TPS experts would crudely draw the current state and future state as a guide but not show it to the suppliers. Ohno wanted them to discover their way step by step rather than try to copy his drawing. That is what Ohba taught at TSSC, which was modeled after OMCD.
Draw it but do not show it to the client. It helps the teacher to guide the student. I asked Chuck Ward what they called the current state map. He seemed surprised I would ask and said “a picture of the current state.” And then there was “a picture of the desired future state.”
It seemed to me that they named it Material and Information Flow Diagram because of the Learning to See book and others outside were now talking about it a lot so they thought they should have a name for the original version.
As explained by Jeffrey, the MIFA/MIFD was in the teacher’s book but not the student’s. It is odd for the OMCD to use a tool internally and not share it with the organizations they were trying to help. The only reason I can think of is that, while it was necessary for the OMCD members to do the analysis quickly — as they had other suppliers to attend to — the supplier side needed to understand, own, and act on the results, which went smoother if they worked through the issues with their own methods. Presumably, this might even be faster than learning the tool first and then applying it.
Purpose Of The Tool Within Jishuken
Jeffrey also elaborated on the purpose of the tool in the context of Jishuken, Toyota’s structure for improvement projects:
The MIFD has a very specific goal: envision the desired material and information flow at a very high level. It is intentionally an abstract 30,000 foot view to get a direction–not a set of solutions to implement.
The original jishuken were typically several month model line programs that were transformations of a product line. This was bastardized in the US into the one week kaizen event that they called jishuken. Within the week a theme is picked and it rarely is a complete transformation of the material and information flow. I witnessed one NUMMI jishuken that focused on reducing the setup time of a plastic injection molding machine. There was no reason to do a material and information flow diagram for that.
Once they have set up the overall material and information flow, there is usually no reason to use that tool. And in Toyota they usually have a well set up material and information flow. They focus on kaizen within that framework.
Jishuken (自主研) means “autonomous study,” and it started out as study groups in the 1970s. The study groups then grew bolder and. First, they proposed changes based on their learnings, and then they implemented these changes. The original name, however, remained. As Jeffrey points out the 5-day Kaizen Event is a bastardized, simplified version of a subset of Jishuken which, as Bob Emiliani pointed out, created when the convenience of a Japanese consulting firm met American managers’ quest for instant gratification.
#VSM, #MIFA, #MIFD, #materialflow, #materialsandinformationflow, #informationflow, #lean, #tps
December 7, 2020 @ 11:25 am
It is possible to do much more with the concepts underlying VSM (or MFID). You have to be an Industrial Engineering to do that. It is dangerous to be limited to what Toyota did or does.
December 7, 2020 @ 3:21 pm
Michel, Somehow I missed the original posting so went back. My first exposure to a VSM when I was working with a Toyota plant here in the US. An engineer in their purchasing group was reviewing a VSM for a supplier, working to improve the supplier’s delivery performance. i am pretty sure he called it a Materials and Information Flow Diagram, but cannot swear to that. I briefly reviewed it with him, just out of curiosity. That was 1992 or 1993, so i can attest to them being in Toyota before Rother’s book. I saw a few other VSMs (MIFD) outside of Toyota a few times. Turns out there was a professor at UTEP who somehow had been taught them, never learned how he got that information. I believe that too was before Rother’s book; but not positive. I could go back to my files when I worked with the Toyota plants. I never really used VSMs until “Learning to See” was published and recalled my earlier exposure to them. I recall Rother’s reference to them in his book. I worked with this Toyota plants supply chain group for a few years and never saw another VSM; it was not a commonly used technique.
I find them grossly overused and inappropriately used. Sort of, if your only tool is a hammer, all problems look like nails. To many companies their problem solving mantra is “start with a VSM” and I find this disturbing. I have asked them “what question are you trying to answer?” and seldom do I get an answer; just some lean dogma. This, along with the Ishikawa diagram are the two most overused techniques among the many that are in the lean tool kit. But like the Ishikawa diagram it has a place in continuous improvement and if used properly can be valuable.
December 7, 2020 @ 3:24 pm
I am digressing but do you find Ishikawa’s diagrams actually used a lot?
December 8, 2020 @ 1:48 pm
Michel Baudin:
The answer to your question is no, as this was a… (very very old way for senior sensei master leaders) (pre & post WWI & WWII) to self impose) (19th Century old Chinese) Value Stream Mapping Process) by using the simplest of tools to evaluate and extrapolate the closest complete Value Stream Costs in the flow of JIT (parts) of manufacturing value stream mapping, timing & linkage to finished goods by using pictures of a nail and hammer at each site(s) of “COST” in Motion (Timing)! Nails and a Hammer.
As time moved forward from 1945 to 1955 it was decided by (IE) Japanese Master Lean Sensei’s that this above process was too wasteful in time, energy, distance, cost and trained personnel cost)… as the telephone had replaced the searching for quicker & more accurately correct Value Stream Mapping vs. calculations of many difericially misinformation data by travel… (Seeing is the truth of Lean in the True Lean Mantra). Hence the ultimate need for… “Gemba”!
Around 1947, the (VSM) Nail and Hammer slowly vanished until all the old Master had died off, because of their need for CASH (P&L) was directly linked to Speed /Quality of MFG. of a (Japanese Cars / Radios or other items of volume.)
(This new Japanese Value Stream Mapping was 1st based and changed over time on the Production Model of the Ford Motor. Company;:) (Instead of Chinese Pottery and or High Valued Silks) as traded with the English and in Europe in the early 1700’s) The premise Hammer & Nail(s) was… connecting the dots… of flow (volume & exact timing (movement) of goods) (nail)(s)(Nails) at ea. (site)(s)… only when needed at each step of raw materials, processing, production, assy., inspection, packaging & shipping distance timing and timing to delivery… in the quantity required; matched to the TT of each process step in the complete linkage of start to finish; that also included (much homework) (separate Value Stream Mapping Timing and Variable (cost) for the raw materials that had to exactly coincide with the demand of timing for the fastest way & delivered cost to deliver the finished good to the manufacturing (site)(s) all the way thru to the customer (defined distance (days) global (site)(s).)
As I stated before, the Hammer and Nail VS Mapping completely went away when most all Senior Sensei’s had passed away approx. by the mid-1980s. As I was told of this history of VS Mapping during a discussion of the Iron Rice Bowl of China and how Toyota used (stole) the concept “Iron Rice Bowl” 1st used at Toyota City and at Hitachi (Life Time Employment) by Learning & Teaching each day all employees team members to be respected and practice the complete elimination of any and all waste in every process each day.
There was only one person that could stop the assy line, when I was trained in the Principals of True Lean learnings, my masters were in their late 50’s and mid 60’s.
I am still learning today, the ever-changing process of CI at the young age of 74.
But… I still retain the test of True Lean… (Mind, Heart, and Strength), that I was asked to embrace in 1998.