“Draw an e-commerce fulfillment value stream map with customer demand measured as orders per day, customer order, wave release every two hours, four hours of orders waiting, inventory replenishment every four hours feeding picking with a six-minute cycle time, two hours of picked-order queue, packing and labeling with a four-minute cycle time, a carrier cutoff at 16:00 daily feeding six hours of carrier staging, carrier handoff, and customer delivery.”
Read the decisions behind it.
Record how often orders are released.
Measure waits before and after warehouse work.
Label pick and pack cycle times.
Separate carrier staging from final delivery.
Use this map to examine service-level delays from customer order through the carrier handoff.
Other examples in this family.
Common questions
Why map carrier staging?
Orders can wait there for hours, so it contributes to the customer lead time.
What is wave release?
It is the schedule used to release groups of orders to warehouse picking.
Can a value stream map cover a service process?
Yes. It can show the flow, wait time, and information signals in services as well as manufacturing.