TABLE OF CONTENTS This text takes you through the step-by-step kanban implementation process by telling the story of how kanban was implemented by a fictitious golf club manufacturer Emca Golf. Although the name of the company is fictitious, the implementation process and the issues that surface during it are not. The story of Emca is based on the authors' many years of highly successful, on-site kanban pull implementation experience in companies much the same as yours.
The concept of kanban pull has been around for quite a while. Its origins date back to the late 1940s, when Taiichi Ohno, then the manager in charge of Toyota Motor Company's machine shop, was conducting some product replenishment experiments. Much of his time was spent dealing with the frustrations caused by ongoing product shortages. Taiichi was attempting to adapt the concept of American-style supermarket replenishment (recently transplanted into Japan) to his machine shop's processes. After much trial and error, he made the connection between just-in-time production and kanban pull.
Kanban pull is a simple, but very powerful, concept. In its purest form, it is a visual replenishment signaling system that effectively "connects" the supplying and consuming processes that exist throughout the entire value stream. Kanban pull is so effective because it is based on real-time, actual consumption, not hypothetical production forecasting or prediction schemes (which are usually wrong). If your value stream is based on, or includes, any of the following attributes, you have much to gain from implementing a kanban pull system:
Component fabrication...
