Yamazumi is Japanese for "stack. A Yamazumi board is a visual management tool used within the Lean. It is a powerful tool for analyzing and balancing work processes in order to minimize waste (muda) and increase efficiency.

A Yamazumi board is a graphic representation of the various tasks and their corresponding time allocation within a work process. The word "Yamazumi" is Japanese for "pile" or "accumulation. The board consists of:

• Horizontal axis (X-axis): Represents the different workers or workstations in a process.
• Vertical axis (Y-axis): Represents the time required (e.g., in seconds) to complete a task. Often the "Takt time" (the speed at which a product must be completed to satisfy customer demand) is visually represented here.

Each employee's task is displayed as a colored bar, with the height of the bar indicating the duration of the task. The bars are stacked on top of each other, directly showing each employee's total workload per cycle.

What is the added value?

1. Instant visualization of imbalance: The board shows at a glance which employees are overloaded (their stacked tasks exceed the Task Time) and who is underloaded. This is the starting point for improvement.
2. Waste identification: Time spent on non-value-added activities (waiting, searching, moving) is displayed separately, making it immediately visible where waste is.
3. Process optimization tool: The board allows teams to experiment with redistributing tasks. By moving the bars and rebalancing the workload, it becomes possible to design a more efficient and balanced process, without overloading or waiting times.
4. Basis for standardization: After task balancing, the Yamazumi board provides the basis for establishing the new, optimized standard operating procedure.