Value stream mappng toolset

Value stream mapping is becoming an ever increasingly popular tool in mapping out information and material flow within the supply chain.

I've seen it used a number of times to trap inventory bottlenecks or to analyse and plan reduction in leadtimes - its easy enough to learn and can produce some interesting results.

An interesting thing to learn though is that there is actually seven value stream mapping tools - each designed to help understand the flow within the business - not sure whether they can all be applied to supply chain but interesting enough to warrant some further research.