Sustainability-Oriented Application of Value Stream Mapping: A Review and Classification

Abstract

Notwithstanding the research on refining lean tools for the sake of sustainable development is slowly progressing, sustainability-oriented application of value stream mapping has received undivided attention from practitioners and researchers. Going through the literature highlights that there is a lack of research in integrating and systematising the available knowledge on this lean tool, which is regarded as a visual process-based method to make sustainable progress over the time-based and green concepts of wastes to also assess and improve the societal sustainability performance of organisations. Hence, this paper has been aimed at presenting the findings of a systematic literature review on value stream mapping from the triple bottom line point of view. It classifies and codes the main studies in the context as well as provides a research agenda with nine recommendations that may advance this under-studied field. To narrow the gap in the current literature, this article also proposes a sustainability indicator set that would considerably contribute to guiding and strengthening the state-of-the-art research on successful implementation of the application. Besides, the findings indicate that more investigations are needed on employing survey and conceptual methodologies, applying comparative and cross-industry perspectives, developing sustainability indicator sets particularly societal metrics, and considering the stakeholders' benefits from adopting sustainability-oriented value stream mapping. The research on the convergence of this sustainability-oriented application and new paradigms such as IR 4.0 and/or Circular Economy should be also strengthened.

Tracing the lean thinking in supply chain management: a comprehensive main path analysis

“…To complement and support the societal aspects of sustainable-oriented lean practice research, Gholami et al (2019) developed a social value stream mapping methodology that can visualize and assess the societal sustainability performance in the context of LM. Lee et al (2021) integrated and systematized the state-of-the-art research studies of lean tool. They introduced value stream mapping from the triple bottom line point of view and proposed a sustainability indicator set.…”

Green Value Stream Mapping: A Tool For Increasing Green Productivity (The Case of PT. NIC)

“…Of Management and n n 2685-5992 (media (1) 2022 Lee, et al (2021), Garza-Reyes, et al (2018), and Rosenbaum, et al (2014. However, they do not mention how to involve all stakeholders in the application of GVSM.…”

Advances and hotspots analysis of value stream mapping using bibliometrics

“…With the development of those research, some scholars suggested that the current research attention has mainly been given to the environmental issues, largely neglecting the societal aspects (Gholami et al, 2019). Therefore, the view of triple bottom line, circular economy, 3 R and 6 R continue to be mentioned by other scholars to achieve a more comprehensive VSM application (Galvão et al, 2020;Lee et al, 2021). To more accurately define and identify the waste associated with economic, environmental and social performance in business activities, Sus-VSM was carried out as a novel approach which integrates the concept of sustainability (Brown et al, 2014;Faulkner and Badurdeen, 2014).…”

“…After that, the development of society and economy has aroused people’s attention to the concept of green and sustainable. VSM scholars and practitioners started to integrate relevant concepts, indexes and methods into conventional VSM (Lee et al , 2021), and proposed sustainable value stream mapping (Sus-VSM) (Faulkner and Badurdeen, 2014), energy VSM (Wen et al , 2021; Verma et al , 2021) and other approaches. At present, with the development of I4.0 technologies, VSM issues related to data and information processing have also received a lot of attention (Roh et al , 2019; Meudt et al , 2017).…”

“…reviewed and analyzed the stochastic methods used to deal with the uncertainty in the application of VSM from the perspective of VSM technology. The fourth kind of research focuses on conceptual integration Lee et al (2021). focused on the literature on the integration of VSM and sustainability and comprehensively analyzed the research and application status of Sus-VSM from three analysis dimensions: the recognition rate of macro factors (national background of research), meso factors (topics related to sustainability) and micro factors (VSM technologies and indexes).…”