This week, I learned to distinguish three levels of Visual Management.
- 6S for safety and a clean work area which forms the foundation for standardized work. This is implemented in our factory as part of our Lean House for the Shopfloor. We organize monthly Lean workshops where operators from different shifts define standard locations for all material in their production area (bottom-up).
- Visualize abnormalities of processes. This level of Visual Management is reached when all employees can notice an abnormality in their process and know exactly when to take action. To implement this low level of visuals we are currently reviewing our KPI-tree (Hoshin Kanri) and defining our Behavioral Indicators for each workstation (see: Lean Diary – 2013.20)
- Discuss and share performance is facilitated by our communication cells, which are also part our Lean house of the Shop Floor. Production performance is visualized using the behavior indicators at the communication cell and discussed during change of shifts and our daily performance meeting.
6S helps to visualize abnormalities in production in terms of amount of (blocked) WIP or Defects. Behavioral Indicators visualize performance on an hourly basis to visualize abnormalities in processes and show what actions the operators have taken to bring the process back to standard. The indicators are visualized on the communication cell as a trigger to discuss them when there is a change of shift and in the daily performance meeting, to discuss operator’s actions and find possible improvements.
Continu to:
