Makigami
Makigami is a detailed process mapping technique from Lean and Six Sigma, originating at Fuji Xerox in Japan in 1996, whose name means “roll of paper” or “scroll.”
The name comes from the format: the map unrolls like a scroll to capture five things at once – who does each activity, what documents or systems are used, how people communicate, how long each step takes, and where the problems are. That combination is what makes it more revealing than a standard flowchart, especially for office and administrative work where the real bottlenecks are often invisible – a form sitting in someone’s inbox for three days, not a step on the diagram.
A Makigami exercise typically runs current-state analysis and future-state redesign within a single week, ending in a concrete implementation plan rather than just a diagram on a wall.
See how a Makigami analysis makes the unknown known for process improvement.