What Kanban Means for Materials and Operations

A packing line runs out of cartons at ten in the morning. The stores team say the cartons were "on order". At the same time, the warehouse holds three months of a label nobody uses any more. Both problems have the same cause: material is moved and made because a plan or a habit says so, not because someone actually needs it.

Kanban is a Japanese word usually translated as "signboard" or "card". In operations it means a signal that authorises work: make this, move this or order this, in this quantity, now. The signal can be a card, an empty container, a marked space on the floor or a message on a screen. Without the signal, nothing is made or moved.

A pull system is a way of running an operation in which work starts only when the next step, or the customer, has used something and signals for more. Kanban is the most common tool for building a pull system.

Who this course is for

It is written for production, warehouse, maintenance-stores and supply staff and their supervisors: the people who fill bins, collect cards, run lines and order from suppliers. You do not need any earlier lean training. Where the course touches lean basics, whole value streams or stock policy theory, it recaps briefly and names the course that teaches the topic in full.

How the course is organised

• Module 1: push and pull, why pull works, and Little's law.
• Module 2: the types of pull and the kinds of kanban signal.
• Module 3: the rules of kanban, supermarkets, first-in, first-out (FIFO) lanes and constant work in progress (CONWIP).
• Module 4: sizing a kanban loop with a formula, and levelling.
• Module 5: two-bin systems for consumables and spares, and kanban with suppliers.
• Module 6: signs of failure, audits, recalculating, and starting with a pilot loop.