Kanban In Low-Volume Environments

One reason we often hear from prospective Electronic Kanban clients who are thinking of moving to Lean production , but haven't, is that their operation is too small or lacks the complexity to make a Kanban system necessary. In most cases, we humbly disagree with this assessment.

Remember, what we've previously said: There is no magic to Lean thinking -- it's just common sense. And common sense is typically good business.

Kanban best practices usually apply regardless of the manufacturing environment. Whether it's high mix or low mix, high volume or low volume, so long as there is a reasonable number of repeatable tasks, a Kanban system with Kanban cards and other best practices makes sense. While a factory might not have a high number of activities, it often still has a real opportunity to eliminate waste in each activity by moving to Lean. If it depletes some of the same parts repeatedly in its activities, then it's hard to imagine a Kanban system would not be helpful.

An instance where Lean production might make less sense is when supply consumption is really variable and/or infrequent. An example of this could be some sort of made-to-order, artisan's operation. In this case, the artisan could prep an end customer for a long lead time upon purchase and then order supplies to manufacture. However, even he could still have a fair amount of standardization. If an artisan's factory was making grandfather clocks, for example, would it still use the same parts for each clock regardless of how the face or wood differed?

Regardless of classification, the decision should really come down to best managing demand. If demand cannot be accurately forecast, then manufacturers will order parts with customer orders or carry safety stock. If they order only upon customer order, they've got a long turnaround time to their end customers. If they carry safety stock, then they'll ultimately carry too much inventory.

In either case, regardless of size, Kanban is a good solution. Many customers don't want to wait for their order and will go elsewhere. And sitting on inventory has cost implications. Ultimately, both will eventually tilt a manufacturer to look for efficiency gains and they'd be wise to turn towards Lean for answers.