Value Stream representation principles
Highlighting organizational choices
Each enterprise has activities related to its business that must be performed whatever the organization in place. These activities can be purchasing, sales, sales administration, manufacturing, etc.
Defining their organization consists of assigning these activities to the org-units that will perform them.
We can distinguish between:
• Processes relating to the business of the enterprise: these are difficult to change unless the enterprise decides to totally review its business.
• Processing depending on organizational choices.
Number of steps
Certain steps in an organizational process are exclusively linked to the chosen organization. In such cases, it is useful to check whether these steps provide any real added value to clients or only concern the way things are done.
Delivery times can also be reduced by restructuring the order of these steps.
To highlight possible improvements, you can represent a value streams by flows exchanged between enterprise value stage.
A value stage is a distinct, identifiable phase or step within a value stream that has a unique entrance criteria, exit criteria, and identifiable participating business function or business functional area.