VSM Studio
Using the builder
The builder runs in your browser and saves every map on this computer automatically. Nothing is uploaded.
Build it step by step
New to value stream mapping? Pick Build it step by step on the start screen. One question at a time (product, demand, steps, inventory, flows) and the map grows as you answer; then it reads the map back in plain words and walks you through problems, the future state and the plan.
Learn by doing
The interactive course runs ten lessons and challenges inside the real builder and ticks off each task as you do it.
Drag symbols onto the canvas
Drag any symbol from the left palette and drop it where you want it, or click it to drop it in the middle of the view.
Drag to move, scroll to zoom
Drag a symbol to move it (it snaps to a grid). Drag empty space to pan. Mouse wheel or the +/− buttons zoom.
Drag from the green handle
Select a symbol and drag its round handle onto another symbol to draw a flow. Pick the flow type in the palette first, or change it afterward.
Type the data on the right
Select a process and enter cycle time, changeover, uptime… Select inventory and enter the count. Click empty canvas for customer demand.
The timeline builds itself
The lead-time ladder under the map, takt time, PCE and the operator balance chart update as you type. A process slower than takt turns red.
Export when you're done
Export a PNG or SVG for slides, or a .json file to back up or hand the map to a colleague, who can import it.
Let it interview you
Describe your process (“Order review → Printing → Packing”) and answer its questions: it draws the current state, then asks the future-state questions and builds the desired state.
Style anything
Right-click a symbol for fill, outline, text color, size and shape. Right-click an arrow for flow type, straight/curved/elbow route, weight, color and dashes.
Watch it run
Runs the map day by day: steps light up working, waiting, blocked or broken down; queues grow or shrink. Then it lists the problems and lets you test a fix against the same run.
Quick improvements
One click lists the most valuable changes for your map, each with Test (simulate it), Apply (change the map) and Mark (add a kaizen burst).
Plan to a target
Set goals (double the output, halve waiting, a cost per part) and limits on people, machines, WIP and inventory value. It drafts the changes, checks the limits, simulates the plan and builds the future state.
Cost per part and inventory
Add a labor rate, material cost and machine rates: see cost per good part, the value of the inventory on the map and its yearly carrying cost.
Fold, hide, go mobile
Hide the palette or data panel with the ‹ › edge tabs, fold any panel section, minimize the simulation. On a phone it becomes an app with bottom tabs.
Basic or Advanced, your AI key
Basic shows the essentials; Advanced shows everything; or switch single features on and off. Add your own Anthropic API key, encrypted with a passphrase, and the Assistant answers in your own words. Every ⓘ explains a term.
Name it, copy it, send it
Rename a map, save a copy, copy a share link that opens the map in VSM Studio, or share the map file. The app opens on a blank map; your saved maps are in the list at the top.
Drill into any process
Right-click a process → Create detail map. It starts with the steps before and after as supplier and customer. Map the inside, then “Use these numbers” rolls capacity, pace, processing time and yield back up to the parent box.
Start from a form
New map → Start from a form: type demand, shift time and one row per step, and the map is drawn for you.
Monitor progress
The KPIs tab suggests what to track from your map (waiting days, WIP, yield, load at the constraint…) with targets from your desired state. Log values weekly and watch the trend.
Implementation plan
The Plan tab turns kaizen bursts into actions with owner, due date and status, grouped into pacemaker, upstream and supplier loops. Bursts on the map show a status dot; overdue items turn red.
Product families and EPEI
Tick which steps each product uses to find families, then read EPEI and batch sizes per product from the changeover times.
Operator balance chart
Each operator's work per part against takt, and how many operators a balanced line needs.
CSV in, A3 out
Import steps from a spreadsheet or ERP export; keep named versions; save to a synced OneDrive/Drive file; print the map, summary and plan on one A3 sheet or PDF.
Español
Switch the whole interface to Spanish in Settings; with an AI key the Assistant replies in Spanish too.
See the 3D print shop example Read the training course Try the interactive course
Shortcuts
Del delete · Ctrl+Z undo · Ctrl+Y redo · Ctrl+D duplicate · arrow keys nudge · Esc stop connecting · F fit map to screen.
What a value stream map is
A value stream is every action, value-adding or not, needed to take one product family from raw material to the customer's hands. A value stream map (VSM) is a one-page, hand-drawn-style picture of that stream showing two things at once:
- Material flow — what physically happens to the product, left to right along the bottom: suppliers, processes, the inventory between them, shipping.
- Information flow — how each process knows what to make next, along the top: orders, forecasts, schedules, kanban.
Underneath sits a timeline that compares how long a part waits (days) with how long it is actually worked on (seconds). That gap is usually the most striking thing on the page.
The method grew out of Toyota's "material and information flow diagrams" and was made widely known by Mike Rother and John Shook's workbook Learning to See (Lean Enterprise Institute, 1999).
Why and when to use it
See the whole, not one machine
Point-improvements often just move the pile. The map shows where flow stops across departments.
Find the sources of waste
Overproduction, waiting and inventory become visible and measured, not argued about.
A common language
Standard symbols mean operations, scheduling, quality and leadership read the same picture.
Ties decisions to flow
Every improvement on the plan is justified by what it does for lead time and delivery.
Good times to map: lead times are long or unpredictable, there is a lot of WIP, you are launching a lean program, laying out a new line, or customers are complaining about delivery.
Not the right tool: for a problem inside one process (use problem solving / A3), or for a one-off job shop flow with no repeating product family (use a process flow chart or spaghetti diagram instead).
The four steps
- Pick a product family. One map per family of products that pass through similar downstream steps.
- Draw the current state. Walk the actual flow, collect the data yourself, and draw what really happens today.
- Design the future state. Use lean principles to draw a leaner flow you can achieve in roughly 3–12 months.
- Write the implementation plan. Break the future state into loops, set goals and owners, and review on a schedule.
Current and future state are drawn almost together — insights about the future appear while you map the present. Assign one value stream manager who owns the whole flow and reports to the top of the site.
Step 1 · Choose a product family
Customers care about specific products, not your whole plant. Mapping everything at once is unreadable. Build a product-family matrix: products down the side, process steps across the top, and mark which steps each product uses. Products that share most downstream steps (closest to the customer) form a family.
| Product | Laser | Brake | Weld | Paint | Assemble | Family |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bracket A | X | X | X | X | X | 1 |
| Bracket B | X | X | X | X | X | 1 |
| Bracket C | X | X | X | X | X | 1 |
| Cover D | X | X | X | 2 | ||
| Cover E | X | X | X | 2 |
Then write down the family's customer demand: units per month, the mix, how often it ships, and how it's packed.
Before you walk the floor
- Walk the whole stream quickly first, door to door, to get the sense of flow and sequence.
- Then start at shipping and walk upstream. You begin with what the customer pulls and see each step in relation to it.
- Collect the data yourself. Use a stopwatch and count inventory on the floor. Don't rely on standard times or system quantities — they're often wrong.
- Map the whole stream yourself, even with a team. Splitting it into pieces means no one sees the whole.
- Draw by hand in pencil first, on the floor, on A3 paper. Then capture it here when you're back at a desk.
- Typical first pass: half a day to a day for a single plant.
Data to collect
| Where | What to record |
|---|---|
| Customer | Demand per month and per day, product mix, packaging / container quantity, shipping frequency, number of shifts they run. |
| Each process | Cycle time (C/T), changeover time (C/O), uptime, number of operators, shifts, available working time, scrap/rework %, batch size, EPEI, number of product variations. |
| Between processes | Inventory quantity and location (count it), and how material moves: pushed, FIFO, pulled from a supermarket. |
| Shipping | Finished-goods stock, staging, how often trucks leave. |
| Suppliers | What they supply, delivery frequency, order lot size, lead time, raw-material stock on hand. |
| Information | How orders and forecasts arrive (EDI, email, phone), how often; how each process is scheduled (MRP, weekly paper schedule, hot list, go-see). |
| Working time | Shift length, breaks, meetings, planned downtime → net available time per day. |
Print a blank collection sheet from the Data sheet section.
See every VSM symbol on one page →
Symbol library
All of these are in the builder's palette. Drag them onto the canvas.
Flows (arrows)
Step 2 · Draw the current state
Drawing in this order keeps the map readable and mirrors how you walked it:
- Customer in the top-right corner, with a data box of demand.
- Production control in the top-middle; the supplier in the top-left.
- Process boxes left to right along the bottom, in flow order. A new box starts wherever flow stops.
- Data boxes under each process: C/T, C/O, uptime, operators, shifts, scrap, EPEI.
- Inventory triangles between processes with counted quantities (and days).
- Material flow: push arrows between processes; shipment arrows and trucks from supplier and to customer.
- Information flow: electronic and manual arrows from customer → production control → supplier and → each process, labeled with what is sent and how often.
- Timeline along the bottom: days of inventory on the top steps, processing seconds on the bottom steps, totals at the right. The builder draws this for you.
Open the takt time calculator →
Key calculations
Available time
Takt time — the pace the customer sets
A process with C/T above takt can't keep up without overtime or another resource. Well below takt usually means it batches and overproduces.
Inventory in days
Lead time, processing time, PCE
value-added (processing) time = Σ process times
process cycle efficiency (PCE) = VA time ÷ total lead time
PCE for a traditional batch flow is commonly well below 1%. The builder converts lead-time days to seconds using your working time per day; some teams use 24-hour calendar days instead, which gives an even lower number. Pick one convention and keep it.
Operators needed
Other useful measures
- Uptime = actual run time ÷ available time.
- EPEI (every part every interval) — how long it takes to run every part variant once; driven by changeover time and the time left over after running demand.
- Pitch = takt time × pack-out quantity — the time increment you release and take away work in at the pacemaker.
- Rolled %C&A = product of every step's %C&A — the share of work that gets through with no rework (office maps).
Step 3 · Design the future state
Aim for each process to make only what the next process needs, when it needs it, linked by either continuous flow or pull. Work through these questions, roughly in order, and draw the answers:
- What is the takt time? Based on available working time of the downstream processes closest to the customer.
- Build to a finished-goods supermarket, or straight to shipping? Depends on customer buying behavior, reliability and product variety.
- Where can you use continuous flow? Combine steps into a cell where parts move one at a time.
- Where do you need supermarket pull? Where flow is impossible — shared equipment, long changeovers, distant suppliers. Use FIFO lanes where a supermarket isn't practical.
- Which single point gets the schedule? This is the pacemaker. Everything downstream of it flows; everything upstream is pulled.
- How will you level the mix at the pacemaker? Spread products evenly over time instead of big batches of one.
- What increment of work will you release? Release and take away a consistent amount (pitch) to set a steady rhythm.
- What improvements are needed? Changeover, uptime, quality, cell layout — mark each with a kaizen burst.
Step 4 · The implementation plan
Split the future-state map into loops:
- Pacemaker loop — the pacemaker process and everything downstream to the customer. Usually implemented first because it sets the pace for the rest.
- Additional loops — each pull loop upstream, between supermarkets.
For each loop, write: the objective and measurable goal, the kaizen events needed, an owner, dates, and how you'll check results. Put it on a one-page value stream plan and review it monthly. Typical order: stabilize the pacemaker loop → build continuous flow → install pull → level the schedule → extend upstream to suppliers.
Office and service value streams
The same idea works for quoting, order entry, engineering changes, claims, hiring. Differences:
- Use process time (PT) and lead time (LT) per step, and %C&A (percent complete and accurate) to capture rework.
- "Inventory" is work in queues: emails, files, tickets, approvals waiting.
- Map the systems and hand-offs; information flow and material flow often merge.
In the builder, enter %C&A on each process box and the rolled %C&A appears in the summary.
Common mistakes
Mapping from a conference room
Without walking the floor you draw how it's supposed to work.
Mapping every product
Pick one family. Others follow faster once you've learned on the first.
Too much detail
A VSM is door-to-door flow, not every movement inside a cell.
System data, not floor data
Count the inventory and time the cycles yourself.
Forgetting information flow
Half the waste is in how processes are told what to make.
No future state or plan
The map becomes wallpaper. Always finish with loops, owners and dates.
Glossary
- Value-added (VA)
- Work that changes the product in a way the customer will pay for.
- Cycle time (C/T)
- How often a part is completed by a process, as timed by observation.
- Changeover (C/O)
- Time to switch from the last good part of one product to the first good part of the next.
- Uptime
- Share of available time the equipment actually runs.
- Takt time
- Available working time divided by customer demand; the rate the customer needs.
- Lead time
- Time for one part to move all the way through, start to finish.
- PCE
- Process cycle efficiency: value-added time ÷ lead time.
- EPEI
- Every part every interval: how often each variant can be produced.
- Pacemaker
- The one process that receives the customer schedule and sets the pace.
- Supermarket
- A controlled store of parts from which the downstream process withdraws.
- FIFO lane
- First-in-first-out queue with a max quantity between two processes.
- Kanban
- A signal (card, bin, electronic) that authorizes making or moving parts.
- Heijunka
- Leveling the type and quantity of production over time.
- Pitch
- Takt × pack quantity; the increment of work released to the pacemaker.
- Push
- Producing to a schedule regardless of whether the next step needs it.
- Pull
- Producing only to replace what the downstream step has used.
- Kaizen
- Continuous improvement; on a map, an improvement needed to reach the future state.
- %C&A
- Percent complete and accurate: share of output the next step can use without rework.
Printable data collection sheet
Take this to the floor with a clipboard and stopwatch. One row per process, in flow order, starting at shipping.
Further reading
- Mike Rother & John Shook — Learning to See (Lean Enterprise Institute). The original VSM workbook.
- Dan Jones & Jim Womack — Seeing the Whole Value Stream. Extended maps across companies.
- Mike Rother & Rick Harris — Creating Continuous Flow. Designing cells.
- Rick Harris, Chris Harris & Earl Wilson — Making Materials Flow. Supermarkets and material handling.
- Karen Martin & Mike Osterling — Value Stream Mapping. Office and service value streams.
- Lean Enterprise Institute — lean.org.