What is Kanban and How can it help your operation?

If you are using one of the many Lean methodologies in your operation, you have probably heard of Just in Time Delivery and Production, a way of structuring your supply, production and delivery systems to make sure that:

• Supplies, components or raw materials arrive on or near the day (or hour) that they are needed for production. This reduces or eliminates purchasing lead times and prevents unnecessary use of expensive storage space for things you don't need yet.
• Items required for production are not moved until they are actually needed. This prevents wasted time and energy playing musical chairs with your supplies.
• Items needed for production are available and arranged efficiently when needed.
• End products are produced to insure delivery to the customer or user just when needed. This again reduces the amount of storage space required to handle order fulfillment.

This sounds like a tall order, and it is. To maintain a just in time production system, you need to not only manage and monitor your own operations, but you must take into account your supplier's capacity and your customer's expectations. The question is, how?

Kanban:

Kanban is a system developed to manage the entire supply, production and delivery process from the point of view of the production line. Since this is the most critical segment of the process from your perspective, that only makes sense.

In its simplest terms, Kanban is a notice board that provides instant access to information on any element of the chain, from suppliers to customer order status. It also uses production cards to initiate and keep track of production and control lot size and content. Other items like labeled carts and bins are also used to help organize and control production.

The Kanban process can be used in any operation where product, materials or services are moved through the system to the customer or end user. It is appropriate to operations dealing with shipping, retail, logistics and even software or information processing.

Uttana has a series of courses dedicated to implementing the Kanban principles at your site. Subjects covered include:

• Introduction to Kanban: This course covers the basics of Kanban, from its development to its application. The session includes a close up look at how Kanban boards are used to maintain product flow in a supermarket environment.
• Understanding the different types: While Kanban looks at the supply chain from the point of view of production, there are still different ways to view and manage that process. The major types of Kanban include:

◦     Withdrawal: Controlling the movement of material through the production process.

◦     Production: Managing the making, assembling or fabrication of the product or component.

◦     Supplier: Control of the movement of finished products or components to the next stage of the process.

• Implementing Kanban Step by Step: This course covers the basic implementation of the Kanban techniques and discusses the various supplies and tools used to manage the movement of material through the system.
• Advanced Kanban: Kanban in its most basic form is easy to implement and use, and products positive results from the start. However, there are a number of advanced types of Kanban techniques that, while very effective, are much more difficult to put into place. This course will discuss some of these advanced options from the perspective of:

◦     Deciding whether the process is appropriate for your operation.

◦     Avoiding mistakes and pitfalls if you should decide to implement an advanced type of Kanban.

Source : articlesbase.com