Value stream mapping is a phrase that gets banded around in lean quite a lot, "Oh you should map that process" "have you VSM'd that?" and a hold host of other phrases (I quite like to ask if "you have mapped the value of a process" or variations on that). You will hear it in pretty much any lean organisation or an organisation with aspirations to b...

The phone is ringing and you know it is going to be another unhappy customer, the only question is what are they going to complain about? Their product is late, there are defects in what they got, they got the wrong thing, there were too many or not enough. Every time the phone it is a complaint, another fire to be put out, another thing that you n...