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
Appendix I: Case Study 2: Rubber Extrusion Plant
Setting
A tier-1 automotive supplier was in the process of expanding one of its manufacturing plants. To support higher levels of production in the expanded plant, four new extrusion lines were going to be added (taking the number of lines from three to seven). Large reductions in work-in-process inventory were required to facilitate this expansion (due to floor space limitations and working capital constraints). Additionally, the ability to mold extruded rubber parts decreases as the parts age, with the secondary molding operations experiencing higher rates of scrap the longer the extrudate ages. The plant also wished to develop a scheduling process that would allow for easy scheduling of the larger department and improved flow between operations. The manual scheduling system used previously was no longer viable, and management did not want to add any more indirect scheduling labor.
Solution
The plant decided to implement a kanban system to schedule production and control WIP inventory levels. They followed the Seven Steps for Implementing Kanban, as described in Chapter 1.
Step 1. Conduct Data Collection
Since data already existed for extrusion line 1, this line was chosen for the first kanban. Scrap, changeover times, line speed, and downtime data for the previous three months were available, as well as production estimates for the next three months.
Step 2. Calculate the Kanban Size
In this step, the production requirements, scrap rates (for both extrusion and the secondary operations), line speed, downtime, and changeover time were used to calculate a replenishment interval. The kanban...
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