Sustainable Growth of a Company by Means of Value Stream Mapping

The world has already changed from a time when industry could sell everything it produced to an affluent society where material needs are routinely met. We are now unable to sell our products unless we think ourselves into the very hearts of our customers; each of whom has different concepts, tastes and preferences. Discussions on how to reach the comparative advantage in the global competition are constantly being lead In many workplaces and offices. After World War 11, It is the Toyota Production System /TPS/ under the name of One-Piece-Flow /OPF/, that contributed most to the topic. Flow whenever you can, pull if you must and never push" [9] are the famous words of Tailchi Ohno, the father of Lean Production Concept /LPC/ at Toyota. The paper brings into interconnection the concept of Value Stream Mapping /VSM/, as a lean management method creating value for the customer and the technique of OPF, watching the flows of material and information. An example of the successful application of VSM at Hartmann - Rico, a.s. (Brno, the Czech Republic), a subsidiary of the transnational concern Paul Hartmann AG (Heidenheim, Germany), is given. The proposal for transition from a "Current-State value Stream Map" to a "Future-State Value Stream Map" is being outlined in the chapter "Seven Questions to make your value stream lean". In order to secure process sustainabllity an "Implementation Plan" has been worked out formulating a series of recommendations such as the installation of multipurpose hot melt lamination device or integration of the folding unit for the table cover drape prior to set assembly resulting in reduction of the lead time by 3.7 days.