Learning to See

Practical workbook on Value Stream Mapping: value creation by mapping the value stream and eliminating waste. 

The workbook 'Learning to See' was the first workbook published by the Lean Global Network. It teaches you:

• learn to see your current problems in terms of a mismatch between the material flow and the information flow in a Current State Map - fundamentally different from process mapping
• designing enormous improvements by linking those two flows (by means of flow, pull and leveling) in a Future State Map.
• managing the realisation of the Future State Map in focused and manageable implementation processes

This is the first workbook in a series. The following workbooks will elaborate on the Future State improvements (i.e. flow, pull and leveling).

Learning to see deserves to be studied in depth. Wastes are caused by this mismatch, so it is precisely this mismatch that we must learn to see - hence the title. A common misunderstanding is that 'system thinking' would mean 'seeing the process from beginning to end'. As a result, many brown paper sessions have been spent on identifying individual wastages and bottlenecks from which an action plan is then distilled. Real Value Stream Mapping is something completely different. It teaches you to recognize and address the underlying system causes (the mismatch).

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