In a recent email message Tony Joyce suggests that Value Network Analysis (VNA) is the next logical step after value stream mapping. Perhaps, he reflected, it is time for a proposal of marriage for value networks and Lean.
Great observation, Tony. Yes, VNA is the next logical approach for Lean, 6-Sigma's Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control (DMAIC), Deming's Plan-Do-Check-Act Cycle, (PDCA) and Value Stream Mapping.
The Boeing Company, for example, is introducing VNA as part of their "Lean Plus" toolkit in their Flight Operations, Test & Validation (FOT&V) organization. Boeing V.P. Dennis O'Donoghue and his leadership team are reorganizing FOT&V organization of 3500 people to better meet their requirements. (See: Boeing Unveils Radical Flight Test Reorganization.)
"Lean plus" tools used in the redesign included a value network analysis, which helped streamline TOC interactions within the flight-test organization as well as with aircraft engineering and the FAA. Flight-test engineers and planners also used a systems dynamic modeling tool to help develop the new business model concept. "We used that to model the test operations, and evaluated it using value network mapping. Once we understood the engineer's role in it, we ran simulations and ultimately redesigned the entire test operations," says O'Donoghue to Aviation Week.
O'Donoghue and his leadership team were beginning to run into the limitations of Lean described by James (Jim) Womack, Founder and Chairman, Lean Enterprise Institute. Process engineering approaches achieve excellent results when there is a discrete process where a team has end-to-end control. When processes cross organizational or company boundaries, however, Lean approaches begin to realize diminishing returns. Business results for the organization are rarely as impressive as individual or localized results.
Womack remarked in a recent letter, “The individual improvements have often been very impressive, particularly as measured in financial terms using six-sigma methodology. But as I talked with line managers I discovered that the improvements are not connected end-to-end as key processes cross areas, departments, and functions in the organization. Perhaps as a consequence, the business results for the organization are much less than the sum of individual achievements would suggest. This led to an observation I hear frequently: "How do we save so much money and improve quality so much on individual process steps yet little seems to be dropping to the bottom line and customers seem no happier."
Value Network Analysis provides a way to overcome the handoff difficulties when processes cross organizational boundaries. It does this is by making absolutely clear the human responsibilities for key interactions. Hand-offs in VNA are not assigned to "departments" but are very explicitly designated as "Roles." Roles are played by real people who can make decisions and initiate action. Lest we forget that processes are not the active agents in an organization - people are! VNA puts people head and center as the active agents for managing processes.
Another challenge is there are rarely clean, crisp hand off points for anything other than the most simple, mechanistic, ordered processes. When process become complicated they take the form of multiple interdependent processes - with interrelated handoff points. Process tools cannot address this next order of complexity. There must be a whole system approach to understanding how these multiple processes are interconnected. VNA offers a simple, elegant way to do exactly that, by showing processes, people and interactions in dynamic relationships.
Next: How VNA expands Lean to flow path optimization | 
