Free template
Spaghetti diagram template
A spaghetti diagram is a drawing of the path a person, a part or a document takes through a work area, traced on the layout as it happens. The tangle of lines shows how much walking and transport the process needs, where paths cross and where the layout makes people double back. This template has a before page with squared paper for the current layout, a key to the symbols and a tally of trips and distances, and an after page for the new layout with a before and after comparison of distance, trips, stops, walking time and crossings.
Free to use: print it, copy it and edit it for your team. Enter your name and work email once to download.
When to use it
When to use a spaghetti diagram
- When operators or material handlers seem to walk a lot, or a job takes longer than the work in it.
- Before a layout change, to see the current paths, and after it, to measure the difference.
- On a waste walk, to show motion and transport waste with evidence rather than opinion.
- Alongside a value stream map or a time study, to show where the walking happens.
How to fill it in
- 1
Choose what to follow
One person, one part or one document, for a whole cycle or a set time such as an hour. Write it and the time on the sheet.
- 2
Draw the layout
Sketch the walls, machines, benches, racks and doors on the squared paper, and write the scale: one square equals so many feet or meters.
- 3
Trace every trip
Walk behind the person and draw each move as it happens, numbering the stops. Do not draw from memory.
- 4
Tally the trips and distances
For each path, write the distance one way, tally the trips and multiply. Add up the total distance and the number of trips.
- 5
Redesign and trace again
Draw the new layout on page 2, try it, then trace the same person or part for the same length of time.
- 6
Compare
Fill in the before and after table: distance, trips, stops, walking time and crossings.
A filled-in example
Illustrative, not a benchmarkAn example: a spaghetti diagram of one operator in a kitting area over one hour, at a scale of one square to three feet.
- 14 trips, most of them to a label printer and a parts rack at opposite ends of the area.
- About 1,100 feet of walking in the hour, with four places where the path crossed a forklift aisle.
- New layout: the printer moved next to the packing bench, and the fastest-moving parts moved to a rack beside it.
- Traced again for an hour: 6 trips, about 380 feet and no crossings of the forklift aisle.
The walking in the hour fell by roughly two thirds and the crossings with forklift traffic went away. The team wrote the new layout into the area's standard work.
Common mistakes
Drawing from memory
People forget the short trips and the double-backs. Trace it live.
No scale
Without a scale the distances are guesses. Pace out one wall and set the squares from it.
Following something different before and after
Compare the same person or part, the same task and the same length of time, or the comparison means little.
Stopping at the drawing
The value is in the new layout. Use the diagram to decide what to move.
Blaming the walker
The paths come from the layout and the process. Change those, not the person.
Download the template
Free to use: print it, copy it and edit it for your team. Enter your name and work email once to download.
Run this template in LeanSuite
LeanSuite builds a current-state value stream map from phone video of each process step, with measured cycle times, the inventory between steps and the lead time, and lets you branch it into a future state to compare side by side.
In the lean glossary
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FAQ
Spaghetti diagram template: common questions
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