During my last trip to Japan, I finally took videos capturing the Japanese Pointing-and-Calling standard. Pointing and calling is a safety standard that started with Japanese train operators but now is widely used in industry. The idea is that whenever you confirm something, you not only look at it, but also point at it and call out your observation.
Kanban systems are a huge help in industry, ensuring a steady availability of parts and products without excess stock. However, Kanbans are not necessarily limited to industrial use. In this post I will describe a simple Kanban system for office supplies. This system is also sometimes known as triangle kanban. One benefit of this system is that it will improve the availability of pens, paper, and other supplies. However, a second major benefit is that this provides a risk-free opportunity to train your people in creating and using Kanban systems.
Lean manufacturing pull systems use both FIFO lanes and supermarkets to manage the material and information flow. In my previous post we covered the basics about supermarket and FIFO lanes. Now we go into details about the ten rules when to use a supermarket instead of a FIFO.
It is generally accepted knowledge that a lean manufacturing pull system uses both FIFO lanes and supermarkets to manage the material and information flow. However, there are few guidelines on when to use a supermarket and when to use a FIFO lane. This post is the first of a two-part series that will give ten general rules of thumb for when to use a supermarket instead of a FIFO lane. The second post will go into more detail about the ten rules.
Due to the popularity of my lean tool kit, I present you here my extended lean tool kit. These are items and tools that I frequently use for lean manufacturing on the shop floor, but as opposed to the items from the lean tool kit, I bring these along only if I know I will need them.
Lean happens on the shop floor. When working hands-on in manufacturing, there are a number of items that can help you. Throughout the years I have optimized a small lean toolkit that I bring with me for my everyday practical work. Here are seven gadgets that help me to do lean on the shop floor.
Due to popular demand related to my two posts on “Make Your Plant Tour a Success!” and “How to Misguide Your Visitor – or What Not to Pay Attention to During a Plant Visit!,” I have created a checklist for a lean visit to a manufacturing shop floor for you to download. Take this checklist with easy-to-use metrics during your shop floor visit to make yourself independent of potentially misleading data given to you by the shop floor staff. Metrics include worker utilization, machine utilization, inventory reach and turnaround, and order & cleanliness.
In the West, the standard approach for problem solving is to take a good look a the problem, after which a solution approach will pop into someone’s head. This approach is then optimized until the problem is solved. However, while this often ends up with one solution, it usually is far from the best solution possible. In Japan, a very different multidimensional problem-solving approach is common. Rather than just use any solution that solves the problem, they aim for the best solution they can find.