The Japanese are known for coming up with processes that are simple, elegant and effective. They dominated the manufacturing sector in the 1980s. While the process of manufacturing itself has been understood, not many attempts have been made to learn about the Japanese systems that support these manufacturing processes. The Kanban Technique is one such support process which is an integrated Just-In-Time (JIT) process.

Kanban is a Japanese word that stands for “visual record.” Kan means “card” and Ban means “signal”. It was first developed by Toyota in the 1950s. It was used to manage the flow of material on the assembly line. This technique is used to fine-tune production, manage supplier schedule systems, industrial re-engineering as well as human resources. The fundamental concept of this technique is that the material or components must be delivered by the warehouse to the production department only as the need arises. This is to ensure that there is not storage of components in the area of production. The production line makes more of the required components only when an empty container arrives with a card. In the flow of production each workstation produces components that are only enough to fill the container.

The Kanban cards are of two kinds – production Kanban and transport Kanban. The production Kanban specifies the information of how much work has to be accomplished by a particular workstation in a determined amount of time. The transport Kanban, on the other hand, contains details about the source and destination of the component or part. Transport Kanban alone is known as Simple Kanban; it is known as Integrated Kanban when used in conjunction with production Kanban. For example, the warehouse is the supplier and the customer is the assembly line in most manufacturing plants. Here a container of components is delivered to the assembly line and taken back to the warehouse when empty. This is the cue for the production of more components. As only transport Kanban is applied here it is an example of Simple Kanban. In Toyota, along with the above process, some parts are supplied to the production line directly by the suppliers. Hence the level of stock is low and there is reduced factory overhead. Thus production Kanban affects the workstations of the supplier. This is an example of Integrated Kanban.

The Kanban process confers several advantages such as, provision of accurate information rapidly, easy to understand, reduction of overheads, control of over-capacity, minimization of waste, and delegation of responsibility to those workers in the production line. Kanban is associated with industrial re-engineering through methods such as modular production, U-shaped production, mass production of mixed models and total preventive maintenance. Modular manufacturing is a group technology where machinery is organized such that similar products can be produced in a continuous manner. U-shaped production line is formed when manufacturing is a continuous process and there is an increase in accessibility to the supply lines.

Kanban, however, is a part of a larger philosophy known as Kaizen. Kaizen stands for “continuous improvement”. It has four stages: Identification of changes to be made, implementation of these changes in small steps, observation of the results and evaluation. Kaizen is thus used to decentralize responsibility to the team members while keeping intact the quality framework. Such an integration ensures that the customers get the best at the lowest cost possible.