A value stream is not lean just because it has current-state and future-state maps.
As a matter of fact, this is exactly where many facilities fail. They fail to ever
get from the current state to the future state. The glass wall needs to be a place
where the plan to get from the current state to the future state is outlined. Take,
for example, the common practice of putting Kaizen bursts on a current state
map. A Kaizen burst is placed on a value stream map to indicate an action that
needs to be taken to get to the future state. A look at the current state map of a
value stream at RNA (see Figure 10.4) shows three different Kaizen bursts.
Each one of these Kaizen bursts is necessary to reach the future state. If they
were not, they should not be on the value stream map as an important task.
Understanding that these burst are very important leads to the next addition on
the glass wall. That addition is a clear description of each Kaizen burst. In this
section of the glass wall, each of the Kaizen bursts is listed, and a description is
given as to the Kaizen burst. (See Figure 10.5.)
However, just understanding what the Kaizen bursts are does not enable
management to better assist and track the implementation. There should be many
questions for each of the Kaizen bursts. Questions such as, “Who is responsible
for each kaizen bursts?” “Is the implementation on schedule?” “What is the projected
completion date?” “Are there any problems?”
Each of these questions deserves an answer. However, the answer should
already be there before the questions are asked. RNA managers felt strongly