TABLE OF CONTENTS The Emca Golf lean champion gathered the members of the kanban kaizen team and reviewed the following information so that all members understood exactly how kanban works.
The literal translation of the Japanese word kanban is "signal" or "sign board." In the context of production, it refers to a visual production control system that signals replenishment. The replenishment signal itself can take a variety of forms, from cards to ping-pong balls to rings on a pegboard. What makes kanban so powerful is the fact that this signal is generated by actual consumption, what we refer to as the pull of the downstream customer. Kanban connects processes together in the value stream by making the pull of the customer (or consuming process) visual to the upstream supplying resource. To visualize a kanban pull system, imagine a series of connected loops, like a chain. By the customer pulling on one loop at the end of the chain, all the other loops upstream "feel" the same pulling action.
Virtually any product can be the subject of this pulling: hardware, parts, subassemblies, and final assemblies. A properly designed and implemented pull system results in the right parts being produced at the right time in the right quantity throughout the entire value stream.
Several factors influence the decision of what form the pull signal should take. Key considerations include:
The distance the signal has to travel
Speed (what is the effect of signal velocity?)
Signal content (what information must be communicated?)
