Re: Value Chain Mapping

Sorry, I can't help but think you've confused a Value Chain with a 
workflow.

A value chain for goods in the supermarket might look like this:

marketing -> buyer -> vegetables supplier -> transporter -> food 
processing plant -> transporter -> tinning plant -> supermarket 
unloading -> supermarket shelf stacking -> customer buys -> customer 
generates packaging waste -> waste gets recycled

but the workflow, with time periods attached, looks like this:

identify market need (1 week) -> select supplier and negotiate 
contract (1 month) -> <begin continuous operations> pick vegetables 
(1 week per batch) -> transport (2 days per batch) -> tinning plant 
(2 weeks per batch) etc.

So the trick with the former is to spot links between the tail end 
and upfront, to ease "pull" through the chain. e.g. the supermarket 
unloader would prefer it if the tinning plant uses the same palette 
size. 
Or the shelf stacker would prefer it if marketing designed the 
packaging in flexible sizes. e.g. one UK supermarket prints boxes in 
portrait on one side and landscape in the other, so that the 
rectangle can be made to fit multiple shelf sizes.

The latter doesn't allow you to spot links that help you "Pull" 
better, especially across functional and organisation boundaries, 
and at the same time is overkill for that job as you don't need to 
know the durations. the latter does allow you to spot bottlenecks 
and where to concentrate your efforts to reduce lead time.

So, how can one apply that kind of value chain analysis to software?


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