Group items tagged

Visual control in the Shipping Dept.

A couple of great visuals from the Program Management Dept.

The Buddy Wheel is an easy way, that takes advantage of Visual Management Principles, to manage resources and responsibilities: People and Time. Another aspect in managing people and time is the aspect of who and when - because here we're talking about essentially a round robin of people.

Don't you hate it when you attempt to get a fork from a condiment stand, but end up picking up a spoon? Has that ever happened to you? I hope I'm not alone in this one. Well, at a recent hotel stay, I experienced simple and powerful visual management that completely prevented me from making this common error.

Creative visual management can be found in any environment - and it doesn't cost anything.

Is there anywhere that we could benefit from a board like this?

Even marketing folks use visual management boards!

Great visual control!

True visual management goes far beyond having a clean and well-organized factory. Visual management provides real-time information and feedback regarding the status of the plant. It is a company-wide "nervous system" that allows all employees to understand how they affect the factory's overall performance.

Visual Management Systems should be simple, obvious, efficient, and effective. Thus was the case at a recent visit to a Mexican Restaurant in Utah called Cafe Rio.

A good primer on visual communication

In my experience there are 5 tools that can help with a Visual Workplace and 5S efforts:

gemba-based observers should be able to understand, unassisted, what a given object, process or system is. If relevant, a visual control should also share the subject's purpose, and related operating rules, including a definition of the normal condition (and often, what to do in response to an abnormal condition).

Effective visual management boards should allow anyone to know in real time exactly how the process is performing and where the issues are. To get there, organizations must clearly define what processes and improvements they want to measure. The key questions then become what exactly do you want to know about a process, then what are the critical metrics.

A work order control board.

Simple visual to determine status of the workplace.

A Lean Product Development Process comprises 3 basic elements: (1) driving waste out of the product development process, (2) improving the way projects are executed with stage-gate A3 management process, and (3) visualizing the product development process.

When you are at the gemba, you are watching the work. We like to say you are "looking for waste" and list seven, or eight, or ten different categories of waste that you are supposed to look for. I think it is simpler than that. An ideal workflow is smooth. The product moves smoothly, without starts and stops, without sudden changes in momentum. The people move smoothly. Each of their motions engages the product and advances the work in some way. Machines do not interfere with the smooth movement of product or people. Information flows the same way. There is nothing in how it is stored, retrieved, or presented that causes people to break their smooth rhythm. When you watch the work, try to visualize what smooth would look like. Smooth has no wasted motions, no excessive activities. Anything that doesn't look smooth is likely the result of an accommodation, an awkward operation, poor information presentation, poor computer screen layout and workflow. Just another way of looking at it.