Map the organics receival to product value stream

What is going on

Lead time from receival of organics to release of finished compost at Windsor has grown from eight weeks to eleven, and the maturation pad is full. Product testing results take up to ten days to come back and batches wait for release. Screening is done in campaigns when the screen is free from the mulch line. Bronwyn Tate believes the constraint is the screen but the crew think it is the testing turnaround. Before a capital request for more pad space, she wants the value stream mapped with the crew from receival to release, the waiting and the constraint identified from data in the loads register and the sample register, and a target state with actions on the A3 template.

Your brief

Map the current state of the organics value stream with the crew using measured data, identify where material waits and why, find the constraint, design a target state that reduces lead time without capital where possible and record the actions in the improvement register.

Work through it

You do not need to do it all. Doing a few of these will show you what the work is like. Your ticks and notes stay on this device.

• Read the odour and composting process control procedure and the improvement A3 template, and pull the last three months of receival tonnages from the loads register and batch test dates from the sample register.
• Walk the process from receival to release with two crew members and Bronwyn Tate and record each step, its cycle time, the batch size and the waiting between steps.
• Draw the current state value stream map with process boxes, inventory triangles showing tonnes waiting, information flows and the lead time ladder.
• Identify the constraint from the data by comparing capacity at each step with demand, and test the screen and the testing turnaround hypotheses against the numbers.
• Run a root cause analysis with the crew on the largest waiting time and record the evidence on the A3.
• Design a target state map with a measurable lead time target, for example sampling at the start of maturation rather than the end or a screening schedule tied to windrow age.
• List the actions with owners and dates, enter them in the improvement register and present the A3 at the Windsor pre-start talk.

What someone in this role would produce

• Current state value stream map with data
• Constraint analysis
• Completed A3 with root cause and target state
• Improvement register entries with owners and dates