Where is the Value?

In the previous topic we talked about losses. And it was stated how the majority of our process time was being affected by those losses.

• Look at the output of this process. Is it (containing) ‘value’ at all? Define precisely what in the output is ‘value’.
• In cases where it is not quite clear yet what the desired output of this process should be, (re)define it now; even if this would be for the future version of the process. Always define ‘value’ from the perspective of the customer. You can’t be critical enough here!
• Now go backward; from every activity, decide whether it unambiguously adds value (as you just defined it). Be strict: Something adds no value just because ‘this is the way we do it’, but because here is something being achieved that in it selves contains already value. Good test-questions would be:
  • “Does the customer care about this”.
  • “Would you pay for it?”,
  • “Would you appreciate it?” 
• Mark activities containing value as green, the others as red.

Be critical! It is very rare to find more than 5 % value adding activities in most processes! 

Value Adding Time: How much ‘value’ is there in the value-adding activities?

• Try to estimate how much time of the activity is actually been spent on the real value adding part. Again: be strict. If a value adding activity in all takes 10 minutes, but contains searching, correcting, and other losses, only count the real value adding time. So a value adding activity of 30 minutes could contain 2 minutes value adding time.

Fill Value Timeline

• The third line of the time-section (bottom of the form) is the ‘Value added time’ line.
• Write the estimated value time in the value-activities at the 3th time line. Usually this is just a fraction of the activity time.