4. Propuesta de la nueva instalación de la central de
4.1. Elaboración del nuevo modelo de funcionamiento
As previously stated, DevelopTek’s market requires a ninety-day lead time for the development of new products. To recall, the lead time of the current state is one hundred forty-three to one hundred sixty-three days, and as much as one hundred ninety-three days when several redesign iterations are required.
Therefore, DevelopTek needs to eliminate at least seventy-three days from the current state in order to achieve the desired lead time. In addition, the number of projects requiring redesign, as well as the number of redesign iterations, must be reduced in order to more consistently meet the desired lead time. The team really should target a lead time of less than ninety days (say, seventy-fi ve days) in order to better ensure that the desired lead time can be met. Specifi c ideas to reduce lead time will be explored during discussion of subsequent future state questions.
From a quality standpoint, the value stream mapping (VSM) team has estab-lished as a goal a 50 percent reduction in warranty costs—from 6% of sales to 3%. In addition, they established a goal for fi rst pass yield of 70%, up from 8%. The team felt strongly that these goals could be met within the next twelve months. Once again, methods to improve the quality performance of the devel-opment process will be identifi ed during discussion of subsequent future state questions. The quality expectations, together with the desired lead time, will form the service level for the future state. All of the VSM team’s efforts in design-ing the future state will be geared toward meetdesign-ing this service level.
78 ◾ Value Stream Mapping for Lean Development: A How-To Guide for Streamlining Time to Market
After establishing their goal for the fi rst pass yield, the team next calculated a Takt time for the development process as follows:
Takt Time = 52 weeks per year ÷ 26 projects per year = 2 weeks per project If we assume a fi ve-day work week, the Takt time will be ten days per proj-ect. In other words, the development process must have the capacity to complete a project every ten days, and development projects must be completed within ninety days from start to fi nish. The Takt time can be compared to the total process time of the current development process to determine the amount of resources required. To do this, we will assume an eight-hour workday. Therefore, Takt time can be restated as eighty hours per project (ten days per project × eight hours per day). From the current state map, the total process time is estimated to be four hundred thirty-two hours.
Number of required people = 432 people-hours per project ÷ 80 hours = 5.4 people In other words, if nothing else changes, approximately fi ve to six people will be required to meet demand. Of course, there is much waste in the current pro-cess, and the expectation will be to reduce process time and, in turn, the num-ber of people required. The numnum-ber of required resources must be reassessed as the VSM team continues its future state design, and as ideas are generated to reduce waste. The team agreed that a simple method to monitor demand versus capacity needed to be developed as part of the future state.
The team decided to address the needs of internal customers as part of the discussion of the following future state questions.
How Often Will We Check Performance?
Given that the expected lead time of the future state will be less than ninety days, and that a development project should be completed every two weeks (or ten working days), the VSM team decided that the appropriate frequency to review process performance and the status of projects is weekly, or every fi ve days. For this weekly review, the team decided to create a visual board that displays the sta-tus of each project in process. The board will be worker managed, and will make use of “traffi c light” techniques to quickly convey status. Key milestones in the development process will be defi ned, along with their expected completion dates, and posted on the board. An example of such a board is provided in Figure 8.1.
Green indicates that a milestone is on schedule to be met. Yellow indicates that a milestone is in danger of not being met and that corrective action may be necessary. Red indicates that a milestone will not be met and that corrective action will be required in order to get the project back on track. Team members will have the authority to change the status at any time, but not less frequently than weekly.
DevelopTek’s Future State ◾ 79
The team also discussed the possibility of increasing the frequency of review-ing performance in the future, if they see a benefi t to doreview-ing so. But for now, they believe that the weekly review will be suffi cient to provide a beat, a pace, or a rhythm to the development process and improve its ability to meet the estab-lished service level. They also felt that the visual status board could be designed in such a way that it could be used as well as a capacity-planning tool to monitor demand versus capacity.
Which Steps Create Value and Which Are Waste?
In reviewing the current state map, the most apparent waste is defects or cor-rection. The fi rst pass yield for the current development process is 8.1 percent.
Further, the VSM team recognizes that there is nonvalue-added time embedded in the various estimated process times due to the presence of incomplete and inaccurate information.
For example, the team estimated that approximately 50%, or twenty hours, of the process time for the Develop Specifi cations step involves obtaining clarity on requirements, chasing after missing information from the previous step, and related activities. Therefore, the process time for Develop Specifi cations can be signifi cantly reduced if the quality of information can be improved from 50 percent complete and accurate to, say 95 percent, in the future state. A similar discussion of subsequent process steps resulted in estimated reductions in process time of approximately sixteen hours for Design Prototype, and eight hours for Create Final Drawings.” Although it is diffi cult to precisely estimate the new process times, the team was confi dent that these reductions could be achieved in the future state by improving the information quality to a level of 95 percent in each of the initial processes. These changes were noted on the current state map (Figure 8.2).
Lean Note
As noted in chapter 6, the frequency of review of performance has also been called “management timeframe” or “pitch.” It is not uncommon for an organization or team to change the frequency of its review over time, once it has seen the benefi ts of frequent but simple reviews of performance.
Often, teams will increase the frequency or pitch and will realize addi-tional benefi ts by doing so.
Project
Figure 8.1 Visual status board.
80 ◾ Value Stream Mapping for Lean Development: A How-To Guide for Streamlining Time to Market
To improve the information quality, the team identifi ed the need for a compre-hensive voice-of-the-customer checklist to be used at the very fi rst process step, Defi ne Requirements. This checklist will include information needed by all sub-sequent processes and functions. In addition, the VSM team decided that it would be better to involve Manufacturing Engineering during the Defi ne Requirements process, rather than later in the process when preliminary drawings were cre-ated, as occurs in the current state. Although this would result in additional pro-cess time at this step—an estimated additional eight hours—the team believed that the output of this important step would be signifi cantly improved as a result.
During the discussion, the team agreed that involving Manufacturing Engineering at this step would have no lead time impact.
The team also identifi ed nonvalue-added processing waste within the Design Prototype process. This was associated with the reuse of existing design ele-ments or, more specifi cally, the diffi culty in doing so. The team believed that an approximate 25 percent reduction in process time, or a reduction of twenty hours, could be realized by the implementation of a design library with quick look-up capability. In addition, the team decided that specifi c manufacturing standards should be identifi ed and considered during the Design Prototype process. These ideas will provide benefi ts in subsequent process steps, such
Redesign Final Dwgs
Source Tools
Build Proto Test Proto Suppliers
* - Document Development L/T is in parallel to Supplier L/T & is not included in Total L/T.
Figure 8.2 “Marked up” current state map (with changes in bold).
DevelopTek’s Future State ◾ 81
as during prototype testing. Certainly the pass rate would increase as existing design elements are used more often, and as designs adhere more to established manufacturing standards. The team estimated that the new pass rate would be 80 percent, as shown in Figure 8.2.
The team identifi ed a signifi cant waiting waste at various points in the current state—an estimated twenty-fi ve days in queues prior to particular process steps.
In addition, the Tooling Supplier lead time of forty to sixty days represented major waiting waste. The team decided to address these stoppages in fl ow during discussion of the next future state question.
How Can We Flow Work with Fewer Interruptions?
The main cause for the queue prior to Develop Specifi cations was attributed to the fact that the engineer who was involved in the Defi ne Requirements step was not the same engineer who would develop the specifi cations. In the future state, the VSM team decided that this would always be the same person. Therefore, this queue or interruption could be eliminated. Further, the team believed that the Develop Specifi cations step could be rolled into the Defi ne Requirements
Reqs
Prod. Release
Customers
26 projects per year L/T < 90 days Warranty: 3% of Sales Define Reqs w/redesign up to 193d VOC
Takt Time=80h per project Pitch = 5 days
Figure 8.2 (Continued)
82 ◾ Value Stream Mapping for Lean Development: A How-To Guide for Streamlining Time to Market
step, performing them more concurrently. The team challenged itself to complete these two steps within ten days, as noted in Figure 8.3.
The queues prior to build Prototype and Test Prototype were attributed to the fact that the resources required at these steps were “shared” resources. In other words, they had other responsibilities, specifi cally to support Production, which always had priority.
The team assessed that, with an acceptable investment, build and test capabil-ity could be provided within six months for sole use by Development personnel.
This would effectively eliminate these potential interruptions in fl ow, thereby sav-ing approximately fi fteen days in lead time.
Building on the cross-functional approach taken at the Defi ne Requirements/
Develop Specifi cations steps, the VSM team also decided that maintaining a cross-functional team approach would help improve fl ow throughout the design pro-cess. This team would include an engineer, a Manufacturing engineer, and an Engineering service person, as well as a Production associate who would help to build prototypes. This would prevent any resource confl icts from arising, provide
Redesign Final Dwgs
Source Tools
Build Proto Test Proto Suppliers
* - Document Development L/T is in parallel to Supplier L/T & is not included in Total L/T.
Dedicated
Figure 8.3 “Marked up” current state map (with changes in bold).
DevelopTek’s Future State ◾ 83
a sense of team throughout the development process, and allow for Engineering documentation (e.g., drawings) to be completed concurrently with the prototype design, build, and test process. In addition, with the team concept envisioned, the Production Release step can be rolled into the Verifi cation process, thereby eliminating the fi ve-day queue prior to Production Release. Given the volume of development projects each year, the VSM team thought that this was a reasonable approach.
With the reductions in process time identifi ed so far, and disregarding the Procurement- and Sales-related activities, the estimated process time for the team’s remaining activities is approximately 352 hours. Therefore, an estimated 4.4 people would be required (352 hours ÷ 80 hours = 4.4). The team felt that additional gains would be realized once implemented, and decided that they would begin with a four-person team representing the functions previously men-tioned. Adjustments in the size of the team can be made after the future state has been implemented and the team has gained suffi cient experience in the new development process.
The VSM team estimated the new lead time from Specifi cation to Final
Drawings to be twenty days—a signifi cant reduction from the current forty-seven days, excluding queue time, which, as mentioned previously, will be eliminated.
Reqs
Prod. Release
Customers
26 projects per year L/T < 90 days Warranty: 3% of Sales Define Reqs w/redesign up to 193d VOC
Takt Time=80h per project Pitch = 5 days
Figure 8.3 (Continued)
84 ◾ Value Stream Mapping for Lean Development: A How-To Guide for Streamlining Time to Market
At this time, the VSM team felt prepared to visually depict the future state that they were envisioning (see Figure 8.4A/B).
Mapping Tip
It is very common for mapping teams to begin to create the actual future state map at this point in the process. Mapping teams should begin by mark-ing up the current state map durmark-ing discussion of the fi rst four future state questions, and then begin to draw the future state map. When mapping teams attempt to create the future state map too soon, there is a tendency for them to get caught up in the mechanics of creating the map and not have suffi cient discussion of the future state questions.
The remaining interruption that must be addressed involves the order and receipt of tooling and materials. The VSM team contacted the key tooling sup-pliers to gain a better understanding of their process. They quickly discovered that twenty days of the forty- to sixty-day lead time involved the ordering of raw material from which the tooling would be fabricated. The VSM team decided that the company would purchase the tool steel itself early in the process, and have
P/T=52h L/T=10d C&A=95%
Define Reqs & Specs.
5
Design/Build/Test Proto. & Final Dwgs
4 ACAD
Figure 8.4 DevelopTek’s future state map.
DevelopTek’s Future State ◾ 85
it sent to the tool supplier at the appropriate time. This would effectively reduce tooling lead time by twenty days.
In addition, the team decided that earlier supplier involvement would provide other important benefi ts. A supplier “partner” would be selected early in the process, and that supplier would be asked to participate in the prototype design activity. The tooling suppliers estimated an additional ten-day reduction in lead time if they were involved sooner in the process, as well as improved quality, say 95 percent. Therefore, the expected tooling lead time for the future state would be ten to thirty days from availability of fi nal drawings, a signifi cant reduction from the current forty to sixty days, but still an interruption that must be man-aged. This will be addressed in the next future state question.