Leveraging Kanban For Metal Fabricators

Kanban Defined

Kanban Defined

Kanban was developed by Toyota and means "visual card" in Japanese. Kanban helps businesses employ just-in-time (JIT) production. It is used as a cue that is emitted through the supply chain to tell others when a supply is required. For example, if a card is put at the bottom of a box of supplies with data about the supply on it, the employee that uses up the last of that box of supplies takes the card and sends it on to the supply manufacturing site so that more can be ordered. More are only ordered when the previous supply runs out.

Kanban is called a pull system in the production business. Pull means demand. New supplies are authorized only when a demand for them is needed. Cards are not the only method of new supplies being ordered. If a box or pallet runs out of supplies it contained, for example, the empty box or pallet can cue that a new order needs to be put in place.

There are metal manufacturers that will help organizations that buy from them cultivate Kanban systems. This will allow a business to only have to have the manufacturer produce a product when needed and have a JIT system.

Kanban Benefits

Some Kanban system benefits include inventory control so it is always lean and low turnover raw materials are lessened. When inventory turnover is maximized, productivity is increased. Floor space need is reduced since it is not necessary to accommodate a large inventory. Customer response is improved and production lead time is improved upon since the whole production plan is based on customer needs.

Kanban Applied in the Real World

In our business, Maloya, we successfully utilized the Kanban system. This was accomplished by a number of methods. One strategy was to utilize carts that were arranged with the specific parts needed to put together a product. Each cart contained all of the part numbers and parts to construct one of the heaters as well as pictures of the pieces necessary. Through this method of organization, the welders could build the product and not have to spend their valuable time looking for and amassing all the needed pieces to build the product. When the cart was empty, this acted as the Kanban visual card or cue that the cart required to be refurnished, or supplies needed to be restocked. Any inventory differences would also be discovered early on during production.

The Kanban visual cue for production of the heater is when the first large component is produced, which is the outer shell of the heater. The staff in production will notice the large outer shell and know that they are to produce a heater. In this Kanban visual cueing system, a scheduling plan is not needed as the employees understand by what they see what they should be working on. When they notice the availability of a component, it sets off a chain reaction of a series of specific actions, initiating the heater production cycle.

As part of the Kanban method, Maloya also employed an inventory tagging process. In this system, red tags indicated that a material was supplied by a customer. Green tags signaled the material was for inventory. Yellow was a tag for a material that was purchased for certain orders. This tagging additionally improved the efficiency of the process. A color-coded system was also used on the shop floor for work order travelers. The colors communicate to the staff on the floor information about the product. For example, blue would be a basic component that is produced and shipped. Orange would mean a part for sub-assemblies, yellow is for sub-assembly parts and black is for final assembly.

Kanban is an effective way to have less inventories on the floor. It also is efficient in conveying to staff what to do next. As long as everybody understands the Kanban system, it can help streamline work flow in a manufacturing environment.

by: Reto Hug.

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