ASQ CQA – 5. Quality Tools and Techniques Part 8

18. 5B2 Waste Elimination – Kanban Card

And in that we mentioned about Canben card and we did not talk much about Kanban card there. Now, in this video, we will learn about Kanban card and Canben system. Canben is a Japanese word, and the meaning of that is the sign board or billboard in Japanese. And this is an inventory control system. This was developed by Tai Chi Ohono as a part of just in time for Toyota.

So you need to make things when these are needed. Let’s take a simple common example of towels here. So on the right side, you see pictures of some towels. So let’s say in my house I have six or seven towels. What time should I wash those? So one thing could be when I use one towel, then I wash that one towel, but that will be the wastage of resources. So what you see in the picture on the right is that just one towel, before the last one, there is a chit or a paper which says wash towels.

And before that there is a paper which says that check amount of washing powder. This is Kanban card. So what this particular card will help me is to identify at what exact time do I need to wash my towels. I don’t want to do too many washings, but then I don’t want to run out of towels as well. So this is what, in plain and simple terms, canban system is.

So, in case of industrial scenario, what we have in Canvan is a three bin system for supplied parts. So let’s say I’m doing machining of some parts and I need some nuts and bolts which are put in a bin in front of me. And in that bin there are 100 items. And what we decided was when these items reach to the level of 20 items, then I need to start the process of getting extra items, extra nuts and bolts, which I need for assembling. So let’s put a bin here. So let’s say this is the bin in which I have nuts or bolts.

I manage to keep 20 items separately. So out of these 100 items, 20 items are separately. So I keep on using these nuts and bolts which are lying here in this bin. When I reach this level of 20, when there are 20 items left. And this is just similar to the example of towel which I gave. So when I reach this level, this buffer level, which I need to maintain, there will be a canvas card. This card will be sent to my factory store. So factory store keeps the inventory. So this is my store. So that store could provide me nuts and bolts which I needed for my assembly operation.

So that way I don’t need to replenish this box too frequently. But then I don’t want to run out of the inventory as well. Same thing happens in case of store also. So when store runs out of a certain level of items. It has a Canbean card which goes to the supplier. So can bend card basically starts the process of procurement process of sending these items. So once this supplier gets the Campbell card, supplier replenishes the items in the store and similarly when this particular the first can bend card went to store so the store will replenish this bin on the factory floor.

So this is how Canben system is used in an industrial scenario. This could be in case of hospital when the medicines are going low, the Canban card would be sent to store, store will replenish that once the store runs out of these medicines then store will send a Canbean card to the supplier who will replenish the store. So this is how the Canben system works in industrial scenario and which helps us in reducing waste and here we are talking mainly of inventory based so we don’t want to have too much inventory either on the shop floor or on the factory store.

19. 5B2 Waste Elimination – 5S

And these terms are siri, seiton, sesan, seketsu and shitsuke. So these are the Japanese terms but then there are English equivalent to these terms as well, which we will be seeing on the next slide. So even though these five steps in keeping your workplace organized might seem simple, but these are the steps which help help you in maintaining your workplace clean and orderly as a norm rather than as an exception. So now let’s see the English equivalent of these five steps and that will help us in understanding these terms. So here I have the English equivalent of these five S. Seri means sort, satan means set in order, sea son means shine and Seketsu means standardized and shitsuke means sustained. So in five S we take these five steps sort, set in order, shine, standardized and sustain. Let’s look at these five steps on next five slides.

Let’s start with sort here. So when we say sort means you need to classify whatever you have at your workplace as necessary or unnecessary. So look at everything around you. And when I say around you, you might be a factory worker which is doing assembly or some operation or you could be working in office. So you have number of papers, files around you. Or let’s say for my online course I have a recording desk. So I need to look around me and see everything that which of these items are necessary and which of these are unnecessary. So this is the first step. Sometimes if you struggle in deciding whether do I need this or is it necessary or unnecessary, what you would do is you will put a red tag on that item. So let’s say on my recording desk I have this calculator. I’m not sure whether I’ll be using this or not using this, whether this is necessary or unnecessary.

What I will do is I will put a red sticker on top of this which will remind me that I need to check whether this is necessary or not necessary. In few days I could see that I don’t use this. So that means this is not necessary. So I need to remove this from my workplace so that I can keep my workplace nice and organized. This is step number one. Once you have done that, you have cleaned everything which you don’t need. You are only left with whatever is needed or something which you are yet to decide. Then the next step will be to straighten or set on. In seton you organize your workplace effectively and in ergonomic manner. That means everything should be in easy reach.

So let’s say if I have a dashboard here in front of me, I need to pick some items. These items should be well placed in front of me so that I don’t need to stretch and pull myself to get those items. So this is what you do in straightening. Another thing which you do here is that you make a place for everything so that you don’t spend time searching those items and then everything should be in its place. Many times in industrial scenario you would have seen a board in front of the operator where let me put it here, a toolboard like this where you will have every tool which the person needs in its place. So let’s say there will be a screwdriver here, let’s say this is a screwdriver but then around the screwdriver there will be an image here like a borderline here that basically reminds that this is the place for the screwdriver. So once the operator picks the screwdriver, uses that, then the operator puts it back here just in case operator has not put screwdriver back on that board the empty space will tell that something is missing from here. So this was the second step which is Satan or Straighten.

The third step in five S is Satan or Shine. Shine means clean up entire area, remove all the dirt. So with this step your work area is clean. No dust, no oil spill, nothing around you. This not only helped in boosting your morale that you are working at a nice good clean space but also avoids any type of potential problems which could occur because of let’s say oil spillage or let’s say something falling somewhere the things have spilled around you. So if you clean everything that helps you in keeping your place safe as well. So this is the third step in five S which is Cyclone or Shine. Once you have done this, the next step is standardized. So far you have done a lot of things, you have cleaned your workplace, you have made a place for everything, you have shined your place. Now the next thing which you need to do is you need to standardize everything.

This basically would mean that standardize the way for the first three stages. So this could be also viewed as the continuation of the work which you have carried out in first three stages which are Seri, Seitan and Sesan. So this was the fourth step which was to standardize the workplace organization process. And the next step, the fifth step in this is Shituke or Sustain. Shitsuke means self discipline. So once you have standardized your workplace organization then you need to keep the self discipline. Everyone needs to see that this is the way we do work. So keep this as a philosophy which every employee follows. So this basically means making five as the culture in the organization. Reaching at this stage is really important.

So this way you can sustain this process of workplace organization continually. So these were five steps in the five S process. Let’s quickly recap these on the next slide which is here. So this is the summary step number one is sort where you remove all the clutter from workplace. Step number two was set on or set in order where you organize in an effective and ergonomic manner. There is a place for everything and everything is in its place. The third step is Sesame or shine, where you clean all your area and remove all the dirt. The fourth step is seketsu or standardized. Here you standardize these first three stages which you have carried out. The last stage or the last S in five, is shitsuke which is sustained. Here you ensure that the five S principles are the.

20. 5B2 Waste Elimination – Standard Work and Poka-Yoke

After talking about five s we are left with two more tools these are standard work and Pokai UK I will be covering both of these in this single video let’s start with standard work standard work means doing work in a standard way a what does this mean? Is all people in the organization do a particular process in a single way only? One way only why this is so important? Unless you have a standard way of doing work then how could you improve the process? If everyone is doing a particular work differently then what is your baseline? How will you improve that process? So to improve the process you need to standardize the process first so that everyone does that process in a single way, one way only and if there is a problem or if there is an opportunity to improve that then that work process gets changed so everyone then does the work in a new way. So this is why standard work is important. Yoke was invented by quality guru Shingai Shingo in 1960s the term poka.

Yokay is a Japanese term and in that poka means inadvertent mistake and yoke means prevent how to prevent mistakes which are unintentional or unintended? Sometimes this is also called as foolproofing but to many foolproofing might look an offensive term so you could also use the term as error proofing how do you eliminate error? How you make your process error proof when it comes to poker. Okay, think of some examples around you.

So if you have a USB which you put in your laptop or computer, there is only one way to put that USB in the port. You cannot put it other way around. So this is one example of pokai, OK? Another example you could see in your car as well. Let’s say if your door is open, you will see a light in front of your dashboard. If the level of gas or the patrol goes down, you will see the light or indication in the dashboard. If you stop the car and your car is in the gear, you cannot take the key out. So there is a possibility that next time when you come and start the car, your car is already in the gear. So there is a mechanism built which doesn’t allow you to pull the key from the car unless your car is put in the parking. Now, when it comes to pokayok, there are three broad categories of pokayokay. The first one is eliminate the cause of the error at the source itself.

That is the best way. The example of that which I told you was USB. You cannot put USB upside down or in the other way. This is the way to eliminate the error at the source. The error cannot happen. So if you cannot make your process which eliminates the error, the next best thing what you can do is make a system where your error gets detected as it is being made. So this could be in terms of alarm, this could be in terms of flashlight. So whenever something goes wrong or something is about to go wrong, you get flashlight or signal or alarm. The third level of POCA UK, which is the lowest level of poker UK, is to detect the problem before it reaches the next operation. So this could be in terms of inspection, this could be in terms of checking or something so that the customer doesn’t get the defective product. So these are three layers of POCA UK, and once again, the best one is the top one, where the error is eliminated at the source itself.

Other way to look at poke is to classify in terms of prevention and in terms of detection. These are similar to what we talked earlier. Also, in prevention, you make your system in such a way that it is impossible to make a mistake, and that basically removes the need to do any correction. So if the mistake doesn’t happen, then there is no need to do any correction. The second approach of Pokyoke is detection. In detection, you get a signal or warning when a mistake is made. So once you know that something is going wrong, then you can take action. So these are similar to what we talked earlier in the previous slide as well. But these are the ways you can classify Poka UK. So Poka UK can help you in identifying or even eliminating errors. At the first place.