This post focus on how to select a product family for value stream mapping analysis. The first step in value stream mapping is to select the right family of products. A family is a group of products that has similar processing steps and common machines in manufacturing the products. Selection of product family is very crucial. The mapping of value streams for entire products may not be required. We should select the specific products in which the customer really cares about .

Consider an industry producing a 5 products .To find the product families, create a matrix with Processing Steps and Machines column wise and products on row wise as shown in figure. Now note down the processing steps and machines used for each of these 5 products.