Welcome to the February edition of our monthly newsletter, Learning to Lean. In this month's edition, we focus on a key tool for planning lean improvements, Value Stream Mapping.

Announcements

The following individual public courses may be taken separately or as part of a certificate program. We can also bring any of these courses to your facility.

Course (click on date to register/read more)	Date
Value Stream Mapping	Feb 22, 2007
Kaizen Events: 5S, Visual Controls, and Mistake Proofing	Mar 8, 2007
Quick Changeover and Total Productive Maintenance (TPM)	Mar 22, 2007
Creating Continuous Flow Manufacturing Cells	Apr 5, 2007
Material Flow and Kanban	Apr 19, 2007
Lean Production Control and Inventory Mgmt.	May 3, 2007

Click here for details on all of our training offerings, both on-site at your facility and public.

Value Stream Mapping

Value Stream Mapping (VSM) helps us visualize, plan, and manage the lean transformation of a value stream or product line. VSM enables us to identify those highest leverage improvement opportunities instead of selecting improvements based on gut feel. It also gives an implementation plan for tracking and measuring improvements.

This month's edition features four articles that should help you understand more about VSM. Firstly, we give an overview of VSM. Our second article talks about identifying value streams. In our third article, we talk about creating a current state map. Finally, our fourth article talks about developing the future state.

The materials referenced in this newsletter will teach you more about implementing lean. If you would like to learn more, feel free to call us at 866-559-5598 or visit our website and click on "Contact Us."

To subscribe to this newsletter, visit http://www.emsstrategies.com/newslettersignup.htm. Please feel free to forward Learning to Lean to colleagues or use it in your publication. We only ask that you do so in its entirety.

EMS Consulting Group, Inc. - 7040 Avenida Encinas, Suite 104-189 - Carlsbad, CA 92011