Kanban Boards for Lean Manufacturing

With the fast-paced advancement in technologies, the business world has also been advancing. The manufacturing industries have adapted to a new technique called Lean Manufacturing to overcome some of the challenges, which further leads us to the new system called Kanban Boards.

What is Lean Manufacturing?

Companies have been following the same tradition for quite a long time. Their management practices and skills have not changed since then. It includes slow delivery, poor quality of work, and a lot of generated waste.

During manufacturing operations, several activities take place. Some of these activities are impractical, ineffective, and useless. Such activities are considered as waste by the manufacturers.
The world is transforming rapidly, and so is the business world, which is constantly evolving. With this advancement, companies are thriving to achieve the best results with their smart work. The companies today opt for such a procedure that can increase their productivity in less time, which leads them to opt for Lean manufacturing.

Lean manufacturing helps an organization in achieving its goals efficiently and with the least hassle. This approach increases the value of products, services, and reduces waste production. Lean management includes various tools and methods to eliminate factors that are responsible for wasting time, efforts, and money. It helps you to deliver the best and higher quality products at much lower costs.

Principles of Lean Manufacturing

The procedure of Lean manufacturing works on certain principles. Every principle is interdependent, and hence all carry their specific importance in the complete management.

The five main principles important for Lean manufacturing are:

1. Discover the Value

The most important concern of every single business is and must be the customer’s need. What is it that your customers need and expect from your services or products are something that must be taken care of without fail.

The services that you offer add to its value. The more reliable your product and services are, the more will be the value. Anything that is not satisfactory or up to mark is as waste. Therefore, identifying your customer’s needs is the most valuable step in Lean manufacturing.

2. Attain Value

Once you have discovered the value, the next step includes attaining that value. The process requires you to plan and evaluate every step needed for delivering the value to your customer. This step helps you understand every aspect of the procedure before starting it. Moreover, it can help you predict as to which steps in the process will generate waste.

3. Work Flow

For attaining a specific value, a constant workflow is essential. When various teams work on the same project, managing their responsibilities and tasks becomes difficult, which further affects the value of the product and services. To face all the challenges and obstacles, one needs constant workflow. If you manage the workflow correctly, it becomes quite easy to detect and eliminate waste processes and enhances the value of a product.

4. Pull System

Now that we have understood the importance of workflow in the development of a product or service, we can say that the only key to achieve a successful service in less time and effort is a stable workflow. So, the next thing to consider here is how you can achieve a stable workflow?
Companies establish a constant workflow by creating a pull system. Using this pull system, organizations include more work items in the flow whenever it is necessary. The items get added to the workflow as per the demand, which helps the organization in increasing the value.

5. Constant Improvement

Lean manufacturing is all about developing products and services with the least generated wastes, discovering the value, and attaining it. You can achieve these factors by following the principles mentioned above, but the most important principle in Lean manufacturing is constant improvement.
Every business wants to grow and succeed, which is possible only if they improve constantly. Adapting to new processes and techniques leads a company to continuous improvement. Some of the steps they follow to attain improvements are giving team members the freedom to share their ideas and thoughts and take action.

These were the five basic principles followed in Lean manufacturing. Companies follow these principles and reduce the generation of wastes while developing products and services.
To make the process of Lean manufacturing easier, most of the companies use a software development process named as Kanban. Though Lean manufacturing has reduced several complexities faced while manufacturing, but the introduction of the Kanban System has taken the company’s ease to the next level.

What is Kanban?

The term Kanban has taken over the entire business world due to its easy functioning. Kanban is a method, somewhat related to Lean manufacturing, that controls the production and management of various products and services in an organization. The Kanban Boards keep track of complete information about manufacturing – What is produced? When is it produced? And in what quantity?

This system lets you organize all the steps that you would take during the manufacturing process. The Kanban Boards ensure that the organization is developing only the products required by the customers and nothing more. It also helps in ensuring that all the resources necessary for developing a product are available within the stock.

Its invention took place in 1947, and the most crucial task of the Kanban System is to gather all details of a process, prioritizing tasks, and storing the progress in the Kanban Boards. This system helps in handling the flow of production.

Kanban System and Lean Production

Lean manufacturing has made a permanent spot for itself in the business world. Organizations are relying on this manufacturing methodology to organize the production processes with much ease. We have already seen that Lean manufacturing uses a pull system to achieve constant workflow. Using Kanban can also make this possible.

The pull system controls the stock level, balances the workload, and enhances the management criteria.

The pull system is responsible for making a chain that connects material supply to the first step. The functioning of Kanban Boards includes the addition and elimination of cards that represents a stock level. If the cards are removed one by one from the system, this means all stocked materials have been consumed, and no more stocks are available to start a new production process. This process, therefore, helps the organization to be prepared for upcoming obstacles and also to restock the resources before it gets completely emptied.

Limitations of Kanban Boards

Kanban Boards have become the first choice of multiple companies; it is not suitable for every condition. There are some limitations of Kanban that you should consider before you opt for this system.

Customer demand: Kanban system works best if there is a regular demand from customers. Otherwise, it becomes difficult for the Kanban Boards to record the stock levels.

Workflow: In case the workflow is constant, Kanban Boards work efficiently. Once irregularities take place, the Kanban Board creates many issues. The arrangement of the workflow is important for an organized process.

Suppliers: Suppliers play a vital role in the manufacturing process. They determine the cost, quality, and the number of items required for particular product development. Hence these suppliers also determine the usage and functioning of Kanban Boards by supporting it.

Product Variations: Every manufacturing company makes various products as per the customers’ demand. If these products are higher in number, managing their resources becomes easy for Kanban Boards, but if demand for a specific product is low, the stock of resources gets held, which decreases the value.

Along with Lean Manufacturing, Kanban System is considered a valuable tool to enhance the business. Since every tool needs an ideal environment to function, the Kanban Board is no exception. It has certain required scenarios for enhanced functioning.

Kanban takes time to settle. You can’t install the system and expect it to function overnight. It needs training and explanation for proper working. One can’t handle all functions – from Kanban Boards to Kanban Bins – all alone.

Everything, including Kanban Boards, need complete preparation and planning to prevent any mishandling and errors while functioning. Therefore, it is crucial to use the Kanban system along with all the essential tools that include Lean manufacturing.