Lean Manufacturing Blog

While walking around the production plant, there were a few things that did indeed stick out. I have put in a few visual management indicators to allow us to know when something is not functioning properly. As the Industrial Engineer, I can not always hold people accountable for using or not using these tools. I merely can put them into place.

So, back to the topic. While on my plant tour, I noticed one area right out of the gate and knew something was not right. The picture below is one where we keep 4 hours worth of work at all times. Some may say this is not single piece flow, but our plant basically has 3 vendors in house. We sort of supply ourselves. With that in mind, this is where the larger amount of inventory comes from.

Anyway, you can imagine my surprise when I see this!! No 4 hours!! This means line down. So, yes, visual management dows work in that I did not even need to look at the production line to see this.

The picture above has 4 lines in it, each with a sign above the line that says what hours worth of work it is. When you deplete one line, the signs are moved down, and the empty spot becomes Hour #4. It has actually been working pretty well with the operators.

But then I see this:

And, just in case you can not read the yellow line:

Ummm ….. This one is not working. This is where the pallets are going, and right now, there are none. This means that the packing area is backing up, and there will be boxes all over the place until they get more.

Then I realized it was Monday, and it all made sense (just kidding!)