Yamazumi Charts

What Is a Yamazumi Chart?

A Yamazumi chart is a stacked bar chart that shows how cycle-time workloads are balanced across a number of operators, typically in an assembly line or work cell-for either a single product or a multi-product line. Yamazumi is a Japanese word that literally means “to stack up.” Toyota uses Yamazumi work balance charts to visually present the work content of a series of tasks, making it easy to balance work and to isolate and eliminate non-value-added content.

Video Embedded in Every Activity

When you measure work content, Video Timer Pro automatically embeds the video in each activity chip. Clicking a chip instantly replays the content-ideal for exploring improvement opportunities or for operator training.

One-Click Export to Excel

A single click sends the entire Yamazumi balance chart to Excel. Timer Pro automatically sizes each work element in proportion to its work content and embeds video snippets in the sheet, with each row representing one unit of time-seconds, minutes, or hours.

Single and Multi-Model Balancing

Timer Pro’s work balance module lets you develop and manage Yamazumi charts for any process, single-model or multi-model. Charts can be output at any size-some companies print them over three feet tall for worker and management review.

Engage the Production Floor

For use on the production floor, you can give supervisors and operators access to copies of your Yamazumi charts. Using the friendly drag-and-drop features, they can identify additional improvement opportunities of their own-turning a balancing tool into a shared continuous-improvement habit. Pair it with Line Balancing to optimize by operators, production, or takt time.

With linked video and instant Excel output, Timer Pro makes Yamazumi charts a living, visual standard the whole team can build on.