News & Events

November 9, 2004

Bend the Curve Value Stream Mapping Update

What a couple of days we had last week at the China Lake Conference Center! Twelve processes and approximately 120 of us went through the first round of Value Stream Mapping (VSM). The goal of this first round was to VSM the Current ("As Is") State and the Future ("To Be") State of each process, and to develop a plan for getting from the Current to the Future State.

The first day was spent reviewing the team charters and beginning the mapping of the Current State. There seemed to be a lot of frustration about spending the amount of time we did on the Current State. I think that there are so many opportunities to improve processes, that we wanted to get right in there and start solving problems. However, for the long-term success of these changes, we have to know exactly what it is we are changing. Therefore, most of the first day, and a portion of the second, were spent on making sure that the "as is" state was captured correctly.

There did seem to be more excitement once we got going on identifying the Future State. This provided the opportunity to begin to see where we can make improvements to the processes. While most teams did not get all the way through the Future State Map, enough was completed to see that we will make a difference in the services we provide. The teams will be scheduling a third session to complete the Future State Map. Most of those sessions will occur within the next two weeks.

On November 19, a volunteer team will meet at the Augusta Civic Center to learn Microsoft Visio software and to begin converting the Maps in to electronic format. Once converted, we'll share the Maps with you through the website. Regarding the website, Adam Fisher and I will be getting together to identify all the pieces of information that have been gathered over the last month, and begin posting them on the website. Thanks for your patience with this effort.

As the first round of BTC projects are getting under way, the Steering Committee will be discussing the second round of VSM. We'll be looking at when the second round will begin, and what projects will be included. As always, if you have any suggestions for a process or service that could be improved, please contact a Steering Committee member. Most of the projects that are already underway were suggested by staff. Keep the ideas coming!

Thanks!

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