Kanban Made Simple: Demystifying and Applying Toyota's Legendary Manufacturing Process
Using Toyota as an example, this is a step-by-step guide to incorporating the ingenuity of the kanban system into any manufacturing environment.
TABLE OF CONTENTS Kanban Made Simple: Demystifying and Applying Toyota's Legendary Manufacturing Process
Chapter 3: Conduct Data Collection
Overview
When thinking about kanban, many people get a cold shiver and fear that they will be changing over their production process every ten minutes with excessive scrap and downtime. They think this because they lack experience in kanban and they assume that kanban is an end unto itself. Kanban is an execution system that helps control the process schedule based on actual demand. Kanban is not a magic demon that makes you do dumb things against your will. If these fears do materialize, it is usually because the organization designed a system that was not based on the realities of their current operation.
Therefore, to avoid your own personal nightmare, start the kanban process by documenting your current state. Using the team, take a snapshot in time of your operating parameters, inventory, etc. Look at your organization as it is, not as you want it to be. When you have the data collected, summarize the data to understand the current state in preparation for calculating the kanban. We will use the data gathered in this chapter to calculate the size of the kanban in Chapter 4. Figure 3-1 graphically depicts this relationship.
Figure 3-1: The Data Collection Process.
Use this two-step process to ensure you have the necessary data for sizing the kanban in Chapter 4:
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Gather data
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Analyze the data
To further assist in the data collection process, we will present a data collection form and two examples to help explain the process.
Gather Data
The process of...
Copyright John M. Gross and Kenneth R. McInnis 2003 under license agreement with Books24x7
