Value stream mapping: your pathway to operational success

March 15, 2016
Value stream mapping (VSM) is a key lean manufacturing technique that can help you analyze the current state of your operation. This tool offers valuable insight on improving the overall integration of information, materials, tasks and actions that are vital in getting that vehicle from your front parking lot quickly and safely back into the customer's hands.

Through more than 30 years in this business, I can personally attest to one thing: Operating a collision repair center is a complex job. It's probably one of the most random businesses you can manage. No two repairs are the same; no two products match. There are different causes, materials, solutions and procedures. And with the introduction of new vehicle designs, alternative power plants and advanced materials, it just keeps getting even more random. 

So how on earth can a collision shop realize true operational efficiency — and the profit-boosting benefits that efficiency offers — when the job variables keep changing?

One way our industry can realize greater efficiency in the operation is to stop focusing on the effectiveness of individual tasks that make up the process and start focusing on the process as a whole and the cause-and-effect relationship between everything we do.

Value stream mapping (VSM) is a key lean manufacturing technique that can help you analyze the current state of your operation. This tool offers valuable insight on improving the overall integration of information, materials, tasks and actions that are vital in getting that vehicle from your front parking lot quickly and safely back into the customer's hands.

Value stream mapping gives you the power to document, analyze and work on a set of actions designed to improve the entire workflow in your operation, thus making it more systemic.

The importance of VSM

Why is VSM so important? Well, I'm sure you'll agree with me that, from an owner's perspective, the never-ending, day-to-day minute management details of the business often distract us from stepping back and taking a wide-angle view of the entire operation. As owners and managers, we fall into that habit (or trap) of assessing what individual items need to be accomplished on any given day, and working our tails off to accomplish those particular items.

VSM forces me to momentarily pause and ask myself and my team for better ways to get a vehicle through our process. It's the “continuous improvement” byproduct of lean manufacturing that helps to identify roadblocks, bottlenecks, redundancies and other restrictions that impact workflow. 

Just as important, VSM shines a spotlight on the various forms of waste in the operation, which affects customer value, adds to stress and lack of predictability, and drains profit from the bottom line.

Waste not

The two key components defined by the VSM equation are value and waste. Simply put, value is anything your customer will pay for. Waste is anything your customer will not pay for.

The main cause of waste

An inefficient process doesn't get that way by itself.  Here are the leading causes of waste in a traditional collision repair environment.

  1. Vendors – If a vendor has a majority of your order sitting on their floor they'll ship it, even if it's not complete.  This enables them to invoice quicker and get the parts on the books. That's good for the vendor, but bad for the repair process, particularly if you have to wait for the remainder of the order to show up. The only real meaningful order is the one that allows the vehicle to be completed and delivered.
  1. People – The compensation structure in many traditional shops may affect the way people work. Does your current compensation system encourage the team to align around customer value or does it promote working in silos without much understanding of the cause and effect of their work on the overall business?
  1. Parts – The use of alternative parts sacrifices a level of predictability that is crucial to a process-centered environment. Some fit, some don't, some are quality and some are not. OEM parts guarantee that the equipment (and the repair kit) is predictable and dependable. They will always fit. In the traditional world of individual commission-based workloads, alternative parts largely become the technician’s problem – to the customer’s detriment. In a process-centered world, predictable and dependable parts are critical. Costs are looked at from a systemic view with the team’s labor being a precious asset.
  1. Time – Time-saving shortcuts kill, especially when they lead to mistakes, re-work, alterations and undiagnosed issues. Excess volume generally leads personnel to skip important steps in order to get the job through. But the old paradox still holds true: You must go slower to go faster. By taking the time to get it right the first time, you'll eliminate the need to spend extra time to correct issues downstream. Speed and quality become synonymous.

Why is that important? Well, its simplest form, VSM, is all about making your process as efficient as possible, which improves customer service, production, timeliness, quality, staff morale and customer satisfaction. That's all.

The traditional shop environment experiences an average of two to six supplements per vehicle in the repair process, caused by a variety of factors including inaccurate preliminary diagnostics, finding additional damage during the repair process, and a host of other variables. Through VSM, the goal is to identify and eliminate those waste factors to reduce the number of times the vehicle traverses the shop floor.

Getting started

Initiating the VSM process involves a series of steps that begin with taking a long walk through your entire process sequence, beginning at the front end where you receive customers, through the waiting area and front lobby, into the management and communications area, onto the shop floor, through the repair process, through paint and reassembly, and right out through the delivery door. 

It's important not to initiate this action by yourself. Take along your management team and technicians and make sure every member has a say as you physically walk through the process. Pretend to virtually strap yourself, the file folder and information flow to the car. Believe me, if you let your team participate freely and openly in this step, you'll learn a lot about production deficiencies, physical layout constraints and even communication breakdown points.

Tips to re-designing your process sequence

A process-centered environment begins with the critically important pre-op, or diagnostic, step, which if performed accurately can help eliminate waste throughout the repair process. Here are other steps you can take to uncover opportunities in your operation.

  • Think U – As lean manufacturing devotees, we've discovered that the most efficient set-up for a repair operation is a U-shaped cell. This continuous-flow layout brings every facet of the operation in close proximity and allows for easy cross training so the repair team can move to different parts of the process as needed. 
  • Armed & Ready – Make sure that all materials and tooling are as close to arms length as possible to reduce the distance the technician has to travel on any particular job.
  • Paint Is King – We all know that the paint booth ultimately impacts everything else in the repair process. In a traditional shop you have a number of body techs all steering their workloads towards that big funnel called paint.  Process-focused shops work their paint operation in concert with the upstream and downstream operations, in effect creating a drum beat or pitch sequence.
  • Use Technology – The internet has provided shops with better and faster access to tech bulletins and other manufacturer data critical to proper repair. Staying up to date and committing to the OE side of the business will help your team juggle the ever-increasing complexity of today's vehicles.
  • Talk, Talk, Talk – Regular huddles with team members (as many as four per shift) will help identify such things as inventory bottlenecks, work stoppages, resource requirements and other waste items that are slowing down the process. 
  • Read The Signs – In a self-directed workforce, computers and management are generally slow to react. Visual signals are, therefore, vital to process success in a team environment. Are spaces filled on the shop floor (and in the parking lot)? Are staff members roaming the shop floor? Are techs waiting for a manager to walk by to ask a question? Become an expert in non-verbal communication and you'll identify trouble spots a lot quicker.

After the shop tour is complete, sit down with your team and sketch out a floor plan of what you just walked through. On that floor plan, draw a line to indicate an average vehicle's actual path through your shop. That line represents your current workflow plan. 

As you draw that line, take notice of how many times you have to re-trace over the path you just drew. Those re-traced lines are telltale signs of waste. How many times do you have to pull the vehicle in and back out during a repair?  How many times and how long does a vehicle sit on your lot before it's retrieved?  How many vehicles are backed up in front of the paint booth? How many empty spaces are there in certain production areas on the shop floor, and how often are those spaces empty?

The workflow map will expose a number of deficiencies (waste) in your process sequence and serves as a discussion guide that you share with your team to determine the causes for each instance of waste. Sometimes you and your team will need to delve deep into a particular waste area to uncover the root cause (or causes) for the deficiency you've identified, to fully address the issue.

Pre-Op: The critical component to the revised workflow plan

If the only thing we repaired at our shops were 2012 Camrys that needed a hood, fender, bumpers and refinishing, we'd have the most efficient assembly line system in town. Unfortunately, that's not the case. And, unfortunately, an assembly line operation just isn't doable in our business. But what if you could standardize a vital process component up front, which would help take production a step closer to assembly line-like efficiency?

The “pre-op” process is just that step. Correctly carried out, pre-op can greatly reduce the number of variables in the repair process, and make each process virtually similar in scope.

Pre-op involves thorough diagnosis of the vehicle, including written analysis, verbal instruction and supporting photos that not only are provided to the technician, but in many cases are sent to the vendor to ensure accurate parts ordering. When done properly, the pre-op process will lead to thorough assembly of the vehicle's initial repair kit, correct tooling and materials, a single parts request from the vendor and a steady progression of the vehicle through the repair sequence. Your technicians will be the first to tell you that.

If you can master the pre-op diagnostic process at your shop, you're well on your way to eliminating much of the waste that was identified in the value stream mapping exercise.

The value of VSM

Sure, collision repair is a complex business. But just imagine your customers dropping off their vehicles and telling you, "I will pay you whatever you need to fix my vehicle ONE time. If you mess up that one time, we're done. If you over-bill me, we're done." With that level of demand, you'd surely rethink your operational strategy to repair that vehicle.

The truth is that's exactly what every customer thinks when they visit your shop. And value stream mapping will get you closer to a process-centered operational strategy that will deliver on those expectations.

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