The study examines the logic and production system of a Swedish sawmill. The aim for the study is to create an understanding and examine how the Lean method value stream mapping can contribute to identifying non-value-adding activities at manufacturing companies in the sawmill industry. 

The case study is based on both a quantitative and qualitative approach to answer the study’s research questions. The literature review has been carried out from the theoretical frame of reference. Primary data was collected through observations and semi-structured interviews with employees at the sawmill. The sawmill’s product flow has been mapped through value stream mapping, which was used to identify problematic areas in the production. This was done by comparing lead time, value-creating time, supermarkets, and controls in the production flow. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the results of the data. 

The results from the value stream mapping consists of a 23.4-day lead time. Furthermore, the value-creating time that a product is in production amounted to 0.12 % and 79 % of the time non-value-creating activities were in the form of waiting at supermarkets and controls. The result shows that over 99 % of the time was spent on non-value-creating activities during the production. 

The study concluded that the value stream mapping calculates value-creating approaches based on the production lead time, which identifies non-value- creating activities. The wait at supermarkets constitutes the largest share of non- value-creating activity in the product flow (79 %). Through semi-structured interviews with employees, non-value-creating activities could be identified based on the seven wastes.