Looking at the value stream of your business refers to all the activities your company must do to design, order, produce, and deliver its products or services to customers. A value stream will have three sections:
1. The flow of all materials from beginning to customer;
2. How the raw materials or knowledge is transformed into finished products;
3. The flow of information that supports the two above.
Because this often sounds bewildering, value stream maps are created in companies to help everyone identify how their work affects the experience of the customer. Building a value stream map is often the first step a company will do that wants to develop an overall lean-initiative plan. Creating a value stream map also provides a visual interpretation of the work to be done. Once done, this process will eliminate the need to ever hear again “are we on the same page?” because now, we will have a map of how our business is delivered to our customer.
