Shingo Research Prize recipient
For the tens of thousands of users of value-stream mapping at the facility level, Seeing the Whole provides the logical next step, extending the field of view all the way up and down the value stream. In this new action guide, Dan Jones and Jim Womack, co-authors of the best-selling Machine That Changed the World and Lean Thinking provide a management tool for identifying and removing waste along the entire value stream from raw materials to end customer.
By identifying all the steps and time required to move a typical product from raw materials to finished goods, the authors show that nearly 90 percent of the actions and 99.99 percent of the time required for the value chain’s Current State create no value. In addition, the mapping method clearly shows demand amplification of orders as they travel up the value stream, steadily growing quality problems, and steadily deteriorating shipping performance at every point up stream from the customer.
Applying the method to a realistic example, the authors show how four firms sharing a value stream can create a win-win-win-win future in which everyone, including the end consumer, can be better off.
The mapping methodology takes managers step-by-step through an improvement process that converts the traditional value stream of isolated, compartmentalized operations into an ideal future-state value stream in which value flows from raw materials to customer in just 6 percent of the time previously needed. The dramatically improved value stream also eliminates unnecessary transport links, inventories, and handoffs, the key drivers of hidden connectivity costs.
The information in the 96-page book is supported by multiple diagrams, charts, and new mapping icons for extended value streams. The main sections of the book are:
- Introduction: Changing Your Focal Plane
- Getting Started
- The Current State Map
- What Makes an Extended Value Stream Lean
- Future State 1
- Future State 2
- The Ideal State
- Achieving Future States
James P. Womack
Management expert James P. Womack, Ph.D., is the founder and chairman of the Lean Enterprise Institute, Inc., a nonprofit training, publishing, conference, and management research company chartered in August 1997 to advance a set of ideas known as lean production and lean thinking, based initially on Toyota’s business system and now being extended to an entire lean management system.
Womack is also the co-author of Machine That Changed the World and Lean Thinking, with Dan Jones. He received a B.A. in political science from the University of Chicago in 1970, a master's degree in transportation systems from Harvard in 1975, and a Ph.D. in political science from MIT in 1982. As research director of MIT’s International Motor Vehicle Program, Womack led the research team that coined the term “lean production” to describe the Toyota Production System.
Daniel T. Jones
Jones is Founder and Chairman of the Lean Enterprise Academy in the U.K., a senior advisor to the Lean Enterprise Institute, management thought leader, and mentor on applying lean process thinking to every type of business. He is the author with James P. Womack of the influential and popular management books that describe the principles and practice of lean thinking in production, Machine That Changed the World and Lean Thinking.
Jones is an advisor to organizations making lean transformations, including Unipart, where he helped establish the first company university in the U.K., Tesco, and Portsmouth Hospital. Jones was the European Director of MIT's Future of the Automobile and International Motor Vehicle Programs. He is advisor to the European Efficient Consumer Response movement and editor of the International Commerce Review. Jones holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Sussex.
