Variable value stream mapping: Development of a conceptual model

Of late, lean manufacturing principles are integrated with tools and techniques that belong to other areas of knowledge such as risk management. Lean principles and risk management, when used in tandem with one another, give more benefit to the user, as proven in many studies. In this paper, a review of works on the integration of lean manufacturing and risk management is given. It is observed that there is a strong relationship between lean manufacturing and risk management as they both have a common goal of eliminating and reducing waste. This paper also presents a conceptual model that integrates the two. The components of the model include value stream mapping (VSM) and Monte Carlo simulation. Although the model has not been tested yet, it is anticipated that it will bring more advantage because it takes into account the variability of the process, which is acquired using probability distribution. This is quite a milestone because one of the challenges of VSM is that it is a static tool, and as such, ...