Yamazumi Chart

The most powerful diagram that tells you the story at a glance. Discover the Yamazumi Chart. 🙂

What is the Yamazumi Chart.

In this page, you will understand what is the YAMAZUMI CHART. It is a simple diagram that will tell you where it is fruitful to start with a Kaizen event and have immediate results both for you and the customer.

Moreover, I have selected for you

and a fantastic Lean Web Tool to have the

Yamazumi Chart always available!

Ready!

Go!

Let’s start with

Yamazumi Example below!

First of all,

here you have an example of Yamazumi Chart for a Product Family and his value stream.

Now,

look at the first red bar that Takt Time.

The Takt Time is the limit you cannot overcome with your processes.

In this case, you have no processes the is over the Takt Time.

  • But what if the Takt Time change?
  • What is the process that is the bottleneck?
  • Where is better to start to improve?

This diagram helps you to answer these questions.

A Yamazumi chart (or Yamazumi board) is a stacked bar chart

that

shows the source of the cycle time in a given process.

The chart is used to graphically represent processes for optimization purposes.

Yamazumi Chart

Yamazumi is a Japanese word that literally means to stack up.

Process tasks are individually represented in a stacked bar chart.

These can be categorized as either:

  • Value Added

  • Not Value Added

  • Waste

The mean duration time of each task is recorded and displayed within the bar chart.

Each process task is stacked to represent the entire process step.

The axes of the Yamazumi chart are as follow:

  • y-axis represents cycle time.

  • x-axis represents each process step.

Often, a target cycle time (that is the TAKT TIME) will be plotted to aid line balancing activities.

Why is Yamazumi Chart useful?

The Yamazumi chart can be used for both process

  • Waste Elimination
  • Line Balancing activity

Sometimes it is called TAKT TIME BAR CHART, too.

Process steps can be rearranged or deleted to optimize and balance the target process.

The tool is intended to support Business Process Improvement teams,

that are involved in the Lean Production.

It is also a useful Lean training aid.

Yamazumi charts are used by Lean improvement teams throughout many process-driven organizations.

Here there is the Yamazumi Definition by LEI.

Benefits of using Yamazumi

The Yamazumi board provides a mechanism to rebalance a process when Takt changes quickly.

It allows a visual indication of which operations are:

  • Overloaded (beyond takt)
  • Underutilized

Moreover,

the Yamazumi chart is a great visual tool to show where are:

  • Delays
  • Wastage
  • Blocks

If you arrived here, it means that you have found our guide interesting.

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Learning with practice

We created for you a very simple Yamazumi Chart Template.

With this Yamazumi Chart in Excel, you can simulate a process and understand how

this simple diagram works for you.

 


  • Yamazumi Chart in Excel

    A simple XLS to simulate the creation of the Yamazumi Chart.

    It helps to understand and you can download for free.

 

Here is the Kicker!

We created for you the only Yamazumi Chart on line.

Even if you have not your PC,

you can have access to this online feature to have

your chart immediately calculated.

 

Finally what the expert says ...

  • Yamazumi is a useful diagram

    When you have the Yamazumi Chart, you can see where to do KAIZEN and how to balance the line.

  • Has to be dynamic

    Especially if the customer demand is extremely variable, you have to simulate different scenarios.

  • The hardest part is the cycle time

    The hardest part is to have reliable cycle time to put on the diagram. Do not rely on the system, go and see with your eyes!

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