Improving IT flows through Lean Thinking

In the next chapter, you will learn how to apply Systems Thinking to reduce complexity across six potential value streams involving one to six sets of activities (See Figure 3.2, an image showing nodes, potential connections, actual connections, and network densities.) The graphic provided demonstrates how aligning value stream activities as streamlined flows reduces the number of possible connections and interactions across the activities. Thus, the linear-sequential approach is the most efficient way to operate within a value stream.

However, we can still mess things up by not reducing the setup and cycle times of lengthier activities and allowing work items to queue at those slower activities within the value stream. As noted previously, the ideal goal is to match each activity and the overall production rates to the rate of receiving customer orders or requirements. We can calculate this as the time to produce work items, divided by the...