Visual Management

Visuality, Team Performance, Visual Systems, Visual Performance, 5S Boards, Workflow visuality, Bottlenecks, Constraints, Inventory, Files, Instructions and chacklists.

How would we know without visual management?

Visual management is a concept of installing essential information as close to the point of use as possible. Engaging the workforce is the most powerful tool in business process improvement, and visual management is one of the most powerful tools in gaining engagement.

Bring the work and information to the worker; not the worker to the information and work as this is both costly and wasteful.

Visual management provides us with the necessary information and process input requirements at the point of use by providing:

• Minimum, maximum storage levels
• Re-fill, re-order points and Kanban signals
• right, wrong check information
• instructions and standardised work
• optimum working conditions like pressure, temperature, speed, torque etc
• performance measurement
• Short interval controls

The lean tool 5S is the place to start with your visual management strategy. Use 5S to lead the transition into standardised work, just in time pull processing, kanban, performance measurement and management.

A sign of good management in a modern workplace is that it is clean, well organised and have visual controls in:

• What?
• Where? 
• When?
• How to do it?
• How are we going currently?

Most of all we want to know, how individual efforts contribute to the overall success.

When you get started with 5S, you will find the employees readily accept it as it is not intrusive or threatening and begins by using good housekeeping and organizational practices and works in any environment, no matter at what stage of Lean implementation. However true visual management techniques go well beyond housekeeping, it provides real time information feedback regarding how to and performance status. Visual management is a whole of organisation linked system providing up to date information of the overall business value stream by value stream performance.

As an example of visual management is the football scoreboard, providing up to date performance, individual statistics, goals or opposition targets and instant replays of events, these are called "Andon Systems" in the lean application. The andon system generates and maintains an employee interest and challenge using unambiguous feedback on performance.

Visual Management makes for the alignment of more strategic actions, decisions and improvement as well as sharing a vision of how each person contributes.
 

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Services

Need to:

• get 5S up and running
• reduce your processing errors
• commence your visual management program
• commence your work instructions and standardised work

Contact us, for training, support or facilitating the whole program.