In today's market, many companies find themselves in a situation where customers place higher demands on companies. This is a challenge for companies to meet these demands effectively, one way to do it is to implement Lean which can lead to increased productivity, lower costs and better quality. One of the most effective and important tools for streamlining production within Lean is value stream mapping, which identifies the most important activities where they are categorized as value-creating, non-value-creating and waste. There is a clear trend for companies to implement new ways of working that focus on reducing non-value-creating activities. However this can lead to an increased workload, where repetitive tasks are performed at a higher rate without break or variations. However, there is still lack of a knowledge addressed in research and studies on manufacturing organizations, which have contributed to the development of various models for conducting value stream mapping that take ergonomic factors into account. 

The purpose of this study is to investigate how an ergonomic value stream mapping can contribute to creating a future production flow with reduced waste and a reduced ergonomic strain in the manufacturing industry. Furthermore, the aim is to investigate how the ergonomic value stream mapping can be used as a basis for a machine investment. The study's primary information has been collected through interviews and observations. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with three respondents as well as structured and unstructured observations. 

The results and conclusions of the study show that the proposed changes in the production flow will be able to contribute to a more efficient future production flow with reduced ergonomic load. The ergonomic strain is reduced both at the activity level and for the entire production process. The study confirms that ergonomic value stream mapping can be used as a basis for a machine investment by identifying how changes affect the ergonomic strain and production efficiency.