Efficiently map your whole factory using Product Families in Value Stream Mapping

When making a #ValueStreamMap, it can really help to divide your products into more or less similar product families. This useful when your VSM focuses on overall capacity and performance of your lines (when mapping the customer experience or flow of a product through your processes, product families won't help as much). Defining these families allows you to map your whole production without making too many separate VSM's, it helps to prioritise actions based on the volume of products positively effected and defining the families (especially using a product-process matrix) often helps you to clarify the similarities/differences between processes.