Process box
One step in the flow of material, such as stamping, welding or assembly. The process box is a rectangle with the name of the process in a band across the top.
Easily confused with
How to read it
A process box does not stand for every single operation. The Lean Enterprise Institute, which publishes the value stream mapping workbook Learning to See, says one box covers one area of material flow, and the box stops wherever processes are disconnected and the material flow stops. The UW-Stout study puts it the same way: a whole line of connected workstations is one box, while separate operations with inventory between them get a box each. The process’s figures go in a data box beneath it.
Also searched as: process box symbol, process icon vsm, value stream map process box, vsm process.
Look-alikes
A Data box is the box under the process box, divided into rows of figures. In a flowchart a plain rectangle is a process step of any size, with no data underneath.
Read next
- Next in Value stream mapping symbolsData boxThe figures for a process or a customer, written in a box under its icon. Under a process box the data box usually gives the cycle time (C/T), changeover time (C/O) and uptime.
- The same shape in European flagsFlag of RussiaRussia’s flag is three equal horizontal stripes, white, blue and red from the top, as the federal law on the state flag of 2000 describes it. The law gives the colours no meaning, and the Presidential Library notes that they have no official interpretation today.
More value stream mapping symbols
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols drawn with lines or squares and rectangles.
Sources
- Value-Stream Mapping, Lexicon term, Lean Enterprise Institute, Zones of a value-stream map
- Value Stream Mapping at XYZ Company, Madhubala Rauniyar, MS research paper, May 2007, Appendix A: Value Stream Process symbols, University of Wisconsin-Stout (MINDS@UW), Appendix A, Process; Dedicated Process
- Lean and Environment Toolkit, Version 1.0, Chapter 3 and Appendix A (Common Icons Used in Value Stream Maps), US Environmental Protection Agency, Chapter 3, Record Environmental Data
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 9, 2026. How we research
Added .