Whether you’re in operations, continuous improvement, or quality assurance, there’s immense value in breaking down each step to find what’s working—and what’s not. This template for Six Sigma value stream mapping helps you visualize the flow of processes, identify delays, and pinpoint where value is added or lost. With this template, you can bring clarity to your team’s operations, standardize how you capture process data, and highlight improvement opportunities.
Key elements of the template for Six Sigma value stream mapping
This form guides you through analyzing processes, so you can remove inefficiencies and deliver better results. It goes beyond documenting and drives measurable improvement. Here are its key sections:
- Process information: Start with the basics—process name, owner, start and end points. These details provide a shared understanding of what you’re mapping and who is responsible for each part.
- Performance metrics: Capture cycle time, yield, defects per million, and first pass yield. These metrics help you quantify inefficiencies and track improvements over time.
- Step-by-step breakdown: Map out each step clearly. Doing this lets you analyze flow, handoffs, and possible bottlenecks, helping you find exactly where delays or errors begin.
- Improvement opportunities: Identify areas for refinement or automation. Use this to open up conversations around innovation and smarter processes.
- Process risks: Highlighting potential risks in advance helps you prevent issues before they happen and build more resilient systems.
Customizing your Six Sigma value stream mapping template
A good Six Sigma value stream map reflects how your organization thinks and works. Customizing the template allows you to build a tool tailored to your actual workflows.
Feel free to adjust the number of process steps. For a simple inspection process, four to five steps may be enough. But if you’re mapping a complex manufacturing line, you might need ten or more.
Different departments also focus on different KPIs, so the metrics section should speak your language. You can add department-specific performance metrics like on-time delivery rate for logistics, or scrap rate for production. Swap out default fields like “cycle time” if they’re not meaningful for your team and replace them with more relevant indicators.
If your team uses consistent process types—like “inspection,” “approval,” or “assembly”—you can insert dropdowns to standardize step types. This helps reduce confusion, especially in cross-team mapping sessions.
Download Lumiform’s template for Six Sigma value stream mapping
Use this template to break down your process with clarity—from the big picture to the fine details. Whether you’re reviewing a production line or improving service delivery, the layout gives you the structure to analyze every step with intention. It guides you through tracking improvement opportunities, pinpointing risks, and logging yields—all in one place. Download it today and start building cleaner, leaner systems!