Kanban – Understanding the Concept of Kanban in Lean Manufacturing or Production

    

Kanban is a Japanese phrase with an English translation meaning “visual cards”, signboards, or billboards. It is referred to as a system of continuous supply of equipments, tools, components, and parts, such that shop floor workers have everything they need, when they need it, and where they need it. In other words, Kanban – introduced by Toyota to improve and maintain the level of manufacturing - is a signalling system which uses visual cards or signs to trigger actions in a manufacturing environment.

So how does the Kanban System work?

Sometime in the 1940s, Toyota implemented a study of supermarkets with an aim to applying their management techniques to the Toyota Manufacturing Plant. This study was initiated as a result of the fact that Toyota discovered customers could literally just walk into a supermarket to get what they need at the time they need it and in the quantity they desired with little to no difficulty. Also, Toyota understood supermarkets only stocked what they perceive will sell well and customers only pick up what they want. As a result, they likened their manufacturing process with that of the supermarkets thereby, developing a system that continuously supply components, parts and more so that workers have all they need to complete tasks at any given time.  

To get a better grip of how the whole Kanban process works, it is important that a few more point regarding it be understood. In production scheduling, is an important factor which determines success based on “pushing” the demand is the quality of the expected demand that can receive such pull. In contrast, Kanban is part of an approach of receiving the “pull” from demand. This will result in the supply, or production being determined according to the actual demand of the customers, thereby causing demand signals which immediately propagate through the supply chain.

In order to be effective, a company’s Kanban must follow a number of strict rules as designed by the managers or other process management professionals. For example, there might be rules such as that of Toyota’s below.

Toyota's Six Rules are:

• Do not send defective products through to the succeeding process
• The succeeding process can only withdraw what is needed
• Produce only the exact quantity withdrawn by the succeeding process
• Balance out production
• Fine tune the process
• Stabilize and rationalize the process

Kanban scheduling systems are among the simplest, yet one of the most effective and inexpensive, means for production and inventory control. But how come not every manufacturer choose to use Kanban in their manufacturing processes? Well, the answer simply depends on the organisation and the tasks to be accomplished. Based on that, Kanban is not suitable for every manufacturing process; that is, it may be effective in some process but not in others. In cases where the system is not effective, other process managements may work best. Aside from that, even in some cases where Kanban is an excellent choice, some firms may still choose to do without it because Kanban scheduling often evokes certain strong emotional responses among workers and could set a number of organizational phenomena at work against it later on.