Walking the shop or office floor with a paper and pencil to collect data and observe actual conditions is how value-stream mapping (VSM) is done. But for a long time, members of the Lean Community have been sharing these hand-drawn maps by creating their own electronic templates from scratch in various software programs. eVSM makes the process of turning hand-drawn maps into electronic ones easier and faster.

As a companion – not a substitute – to paper-and-pencil mapping, the software allows lean practitioners to easily create, modify, and disseminate electronic value-stream maps.

Future-State Map, FAA Flight Standards Eastern Region Office

The best line is the last line in this story at Purchasing analyzing the latest supplier relations activities at Chrysler and Toyota: "Supplier relations are as much about listening as they are about talking or buying”

Lean Thinkers and analysts, including Lean Enterprise Institute Founder Jim Womack comment on Toyota's quality crisis and its impact on the lean management movement. (Posted at Fortune.com)

To respond more effectively to future safety and quality problems, Toyota must learn to trust non-Japanese leaders, delegate more authority to them and decentralize decision-making, say people who've worked with and for the Japanese automaker.

David Drickhamer at the Lean ROI web site summarizes the key points of a keynote speech at LEI's 2010 Lean Transformation Summit by Phil Coley, managing director of aircraft maintenance at FedEx Express. Among the benefits Coley cited was cutting C-checks at the FedEx Los Angeles facility from 32,715 man-hours  to 21,535 man-hours in six months, saving $2 million, excluding parts, per check. The added capacity let the facility bring in more work.

This Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) article features a number of organizations, including ThedaCare.

ThedaCare's results from using lean methods in radiology oncology included:

• A $900,000 increase in gross revenue from 2008 to 2009 and a 24 percent increase in gross revenue since the initiative began in the department in 2006
• A 63 percent reduction since 2006 in wait time from referral to treatment, down to six business days
•  A 30 percent improvement in productivity
• The ability to improve revenue and productivity without laying off staff (and to provide raises to staff last year)

A key part of the success was their realization that reaching the 95th percentile in productivity was not enough, that they pushed to make a serious impact on improving patient care.

The Iowa Business Council gave its first award to a state agency for becoming more efficient and improving service through lean principles. The business group awarded the Iowa Department of Natural Resources as its first Iowa Partners in Efficiency award. The state agency was selected from three finalists and 15 nominees. The natural resources agency significantly cut time and effort to register and title snowmobiles and ATVs, the council said. The business council created the annual award for government agencies that use lean techniques to improve productivity and delivery of public services. (DesMoinesRegister.com)