1st Edition

Visual Controls Applying Visual Management to the Factory

By Chris A. Ortiz, Murry Park Copyright 2010
    180 Pages 39 B/W Illustrations
    by Productivity Press

    180 Pages
    by Productivity Press

    An effective visual communication system can help manufacturing employees eliminate significant waste from daily tasks. From work-zone color coding to posted metrics, visual controls clarify and simplify the path to enhanced processes and profits.

    Leaving little to chance, Visual Controls: Applying Visual Management to the Factory provides a detailed explanation of how to apply the Lean principles of 5S to convert your factory to a fully functioning Visual Workplace. It covers the range of methods that collectively compose an effective visual management system and clearly explains management's role in creating a Lean strategy to accomplish the transformation. This book:

    • Considers visual Kanban, material replenishment, and the implementation of a visual maintenance department
    • Details management's role in implementing and sustaining a visual factory
    • Covers the range of visual tools—including tool boards, shadow boards, metrics communication boards, and tool check cards

    From plant layout and department setup to visual tools and parts, this book facilitates the comprehensive understanding required to initiate positive change through visual communication. The authors supply authoritative insight on how to hasten the required cultural changes, as well as step-by-step instruction for creating visual shadow boards. They also highlight time-tested methods for measuring progress and performance with improved accuracy.

    Importance of the Visual Factory
    The Common Ground of Production Environments
         People
         Processes
         Engineering Changes, Expediting, and Nonconforming Product 
         Inventory
         The Bottom Line—Making Information Accessible
    Management’s Role
    The Basics of the Visual Factory: 5S
    Visual Factory Layout
    Visual Tools
    Visual Parts and Supplies
    Visual Maintenance and Total Productive
    Maintenance Boards
    Visual Communication

    The Basics of the Visual Factory: 5S
    The 5S’s
         Sort
         Set in Order
         Shine or Scrub
         Standardize
         Sustain
    Let the 5S Event Begin
         5S Day 1: Sort
         5S Day 2 and Day 3: Set in Order and Shine
         5S Day 4: Standardize
         5S Day 5: Beginning to Sustain
    5S in Maintenance Departments
    Tips for Sustaining 5S
         Create an End-of-Day Clean-Up Procedure
         Conduct a Daily or Shift Walkthrough
         Establish a 5S Audit Sheet
         Create and Maintain a 5S Tracking Sheet
         Develop a 5S Incentive Program

    Visual Factory Layout
    The Legacy of Factory Layouts
    Visualizing Your Visual Factory
         Actualizing Your Visual Factory
         General Guidelines
         Addressing Waste when Planning the Visual
         Factory
    Overall Sequence for Creating a Visual Factory
    Layout
    The Four Basic Conditions of Value-Adding
    Processes
         Value Is Being Added
         Process Is Being Reconfigured (Setup or Changeover)
         Planned Stoppage
         Unplanned Stoppage
    Visual Inventory
         Feed Materials and Consumables
         Purchased Inventory
         WIP
         Finished Goods
    Laying Out Support Functions
         Common Area
         Direct Support Functions
    Indirect Support Functions
    Back to Your Future Factory Layout

    Visual Tools
    Visual Tool Boards or Shadow Boards
         Tool Board Materials
         Designing and Constructing a Tool Board
         Personal Tools: Dilemma or Solution? 
         Tool Check Cards
    Positioning Tools Overhead
    Right-Sizing

    Visual Parts and Supplies
    Inventory Basics
         When We Use the Term Inventory, What Specifically Are We Talking About?
         Why Is Having More Inventory than What Is Needed to Support Customer Demand a Bad Thing?
         Why Does Your Company Carry Its Existing Levels of Inventory?
         Is It Possible to Drive Down Inventory Levels without Putting Production and Shipping Commitments in Jeopardy?
         What Role Does a Visual Management System Play in Achieving a Reduced Inventory Level?
    A Few General Points on Supply Chain Management
         The Role of Manufacturing Software Systems
         Current Global Trends
         Receiving Inspection
    A Tour through the Ideal Stockroom 
         Materials Common Area 
         Stockroom Entrance
         Unloading Dock
         Receiving Inspection Area
         Main Stockroom
         Stockroom Layout Considerations
    Inventory Reduction Strategy
         5S and Kanban
         5S in the Stockroom
    Replenishment: Kanban and Two-Bin Systems

    Visual Maintenance and Total Productive
    Maintenance Boards
    The Role of Maintenance
         Common Misconceptions
         First Responder
         Impact of Product Nonconformities
    Total Productive Maintenance—An Overview
         The Three Approaches to TPM
         The Three Levels of TPM
    Implementing TPM and TPM Visuals
    Cross-Training
    Visual Layout for the Maintenance Area
         Creating a Common Area
         Common Area Layout
         Maintenance Layout on the Production Floor
         Maintenance 5S
         Visual Tool Boards
         Name Tags
    Maintenance Consumables and Kanban
    Overall Equipment Effectiveness
    The Maintenance Manager

    Visual Communications
    Facility Performance
         Sales
         On-Time Delivery
         Productivity
         Quality
         Safety
         Environmental
    Metrics Communication Boards at the Production
    Level
    Production Control Boards
    Communication Lights
    Lean Procedures

    Biography

    Chris Ortiz is the president and founder of Kaizen Assembly, a Lean manufacturing training and implementation firm in Bellingham, Washington. He has been practicing Lean for over 12 years and speaks around the country at trade shows and manufacturing expositions. He is the author of Kaizen Assembly: Designing, Constructing, and Managing a Lean Assembly Line (Taylor & Francis, 2006), Lessons from a Lean Consultant (Prentice Hall, 2008), Kaizen and Kaizen Event Implementation (Prentice Hall, 2009), and Lean Auto Body (Kaizen Assembly, 2009).

    Kaizen Assembly has been featured on the show Inside Business with Fred Thompson that aired on CNBC and CNN Headline News. Chris is frequently featured in manufacturing trade magazines including Industrial Engineer, Industrial Management, Collision Repair Magazine, Metal Finishes, Assembly Magazine, and dozens of other industry-recognized publications. He has been trained by the John Costanza Institute of Technology in “Demand Flow Technology” and by the Georgia Institute of Technology for ISO 9001: 2000 Internal Quality Auditing. He is also a member of the Institute of Industrial Engineers and the Society of Manufacturing Engineers.

    Murry Park is the founder of MRP ONE, a manufacturing consulting company located in Mount Vernon, Washington. As a 26-year veteran of manufacturing, Murry’s service has spanned roles from entry-level engineer to vice president and general manager to senior Lean consultant. His professional experience includes working with companies from various industries ranging from electronics to metals and aerospace to seafood and from small privately owned companies to larger publicly traded corporations across North America.

    Internationally, he has observed and analyzed production processes in Argentina, Belgium, Italy, Japan, and Canada. Murry’s professional experience began in 1983 when volume batch processing was still considered vogue in American manufacturing. However, struggling with the realities of such an approach, he quickly recognized the merits of such new concepts as 5S, setup reduction, one-piece flow, and kanban, as he came to understand and apply them. Seeing immediate and dramatic improvements from every implementation, Murry became a lifelong student—and teacher—in the pursuit of sharing these concepts and methods with others. He has led countless improvement activities and has watched as serious value-adding enterprises embraced a culture of continuous improvement based on employee participation, thereby also enjoying the benefits that followed.