Spaghetti diagram

Concept

A drawing of the actual paths that people, parts or vehicles take on a floor plan. Tangled lines show unnecessary walking and transport, a form of waste.

Description

A spaghetti diagram is a line drawn on a floor plan that follows the real route of a person, a part or a vehicle while work is done. When the routes of a whole shift or a whole order are drawn, the picture often looks like a bowl of spaghetti, which gives the tool its name.

The diagram makes two kinds of waste visible: motion of people and transport of material. The team measures the distance, marks the crossings and long detours, and then moves workplaces, tools or storage closer to where they are used. A new drawing after the change shows the result in metres. The tool is simple and needs only a floor plan and a pen, and it is often a first step before a layout is changed or simulated.

Related topics in brief

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  Stuttgart-based consulting company and software specialist for Industry 4.0, founded in 2001, that helps manufacturers plan and optimize production and logistics processes; developer of the Polaris software.
• 8 wastes of lean · Related to · Concept
  The eight kinds of waste (muda) in lean: defects, overproduction, waiting, unused talent, transport, inventory, motion and extra processing. Each consumes resources without adding value for the customer.
• Lean management · Related to · Concept
  A management approach derived from the Toyota Production System that creates more value for customers with fewer resources by removing waste, improving flow and involving the people who do the work in continuous improvement.
• Value stream mapping · Related to · Concept
  A lean method for visualizing how material, information and decisions flow through a product family, including process steps, queues and handoffs.
• Factory simulation · Related to · Concept
  A controlled model of how work moves through part of a factory, using current operating rules, resources, orders and normal variation, so a proposed change such as an extra shift, new machine or smaller buffer can be tested before it is made.
• Gemba walk · Related to · Concept
  A lean management routine in which leaders go to the place where the work happens, observe the process and ask the people doing it questions, to see problems first-hand and support improvement.

Glossary

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Experts on related topics

• Mirko Peters · via iFAKT GmbH

Maintained by Mirko Peters (Microsoft MVP) · Last updated: 2026-11-11