ABSTRACT
The third component to be shown on a VSM, after the material flow and the information flow have been charted, is the timeline, a square wave at the bottom of the VSM. Its purpose is to contrast non-value-add time with value-add time and to dramatize that for most of the time that material spends on a plant, nothing useful is happening to it. Because most of the waste in any process adds time to the process, the timeline is excellent at depicting waste. In addition, because long manufacturing cycle times (the total time that any unit of material spends on the plant) cause a lack of responsiveness and flexibility, the timeline highlights this as well.
