Hi Alan

There is no attachment.

Hi there, thanks for pointing that out!  I have added it now I hope - would appreciate any advice you can give me.

Alan

Hi Alan,

It can't be done automatically. You'd have to select each segment of the chart and manually set the colour.

I can't suggest an alternate chart because 'm not sure what you're trying to represent. Each 'duration' is a discrete amount of time. It's not clear from the data that it relates to the previous period of time or even the previous category. Your vertical axis implies that the time is contiguous and I'm not sure that's the case and this makes me question whether this is the correct representation of the data.

What message are you trying to convey?

Mynda

Hi Alan

You can try this macro to change the color of the series.

You will need to select the chart first before running the macro.

Hope this helps.

Sunny

Hi Mynda/Sunny,

Thank you both for your help.  Sunny the macro worked a treat, thanks for that.

Mynda, I apologize for the lack of clarity in my definitions / questions, hopefully I can explain the desired output better here.  The chart is known as a "Yamazumi" chart, its not a specific excel chart type more like a concept that is part of the Lean kaizen process that businesses can adopt to analyze processes and drive out waste.  Each data series represents the time taken to do one step in a given process, each of these process steps is given a designation, VA - value added, I - Incidental, NVA - Non-Value Add.  The chart shows duration on the y-axis shows the time taken for each individual step, (series), and is cumulative.  So although we have all the steps or the process as individual data series, those steps/calculate-longest-series are grouped by the designation, (NA, I, NVA).  We need to show each of those designations in a common color to highlight where there is waste in the process, (waste is defined as NVA).

I hope that makes some sense, the attached file has some information that might help - three tabs:

Orig Example - the file I sent originally

Picture Example - taken from a slide show that helps explain the Yamazumi "chart"

Basic Template - a very simple template example of the Yamazumi chart

Given all of the above is there any way the coloring of the designations can we done automatically using existing excel functions?

Thanks for all the time,

Alan

Hi Alan,

Thanks for explaining the objective of the chart. I've given it some thought and I think your best option is the stacked column chart and the macro Sunny wrote to colour the segments as required.

Unfortunately the stacked column chart will apply a unique colour to each layer and changing the layout of the source data won't alter that. I considered an area chart and treemap, but they also apply unique colours to each series.

Mynda

Many thanks for taking the time to consider the requirement Mynda, sometimes its just as important to know something can't be (easily), done.  I'll work with Sunny's macro as you suggested.

Cheers,
Alan

Actually when I saw the 1st post, the first thing that came to my mind was to use Conditional Formatting as it will allow me to check the category in column a and format another column with the respective color and then adjusting the row height to keep the scale of the "chart" (big challenge).

Since I have spent quite some time on it I might as well share it. Maybe it may be of use for others and to be improved upon.

To "auto" adjust the row height, just select all rows and double click the row.

I have placed the "fake" chart beside the real one for comparison purpose (without the axis of course as it had none)

Sunny