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Storeroom & Materials Management

Kanban Process

Kanban System - Background
The Kanban process for replenishment was pioneered by Toyota for production materials in the 1950’s and has broad application throughout the world for work in process inventory management, supplier replenishment, and workflow management.  Kanban itself means “card” and the Kanban “card” is the key to the process.  Each Kanban serves as a pull signal for the next lot of material to move down the pipeline or process.

FIS was among the first in the United States to offer a true Kanban system for use with industrial supplies in the late 1980’s.  Under this approach, most material used by the Customer is stored in Kanban lots, which are physically located in each manufacturing cell or set up area.  These Kanban lots when consumed will be the pull mechanism for replenishment of material.  This material will be picked, packed, and shipped to each appropriate setup area within the Customer’s facility.  Each inventory point will have approximately 2-4 weeks of inventory based on the Customer’s requirements.

Application
Kanban has almost universal applicability.  It can be used in a central crib environment or in a point-of-use inventory concept.  Our Kanban process can be used in a lower volume, high tool mix job shop environment as well as a focused production shop.  The Kanban process with its ease of use and self-correcting methodology is also a particularly good fit where there is no one individual responsible for the “inventory system”.

Process Overview

The above is a graphical representation of the flow of material and information in the Kanban Tool Management System.  On the top of this diagram you will see that tools are removed from the setup bins for consumption on a regular basis.  In line with our goals of streamlining the administrative activities required to keep tools supplied, no counting of tools or processing of issue transactions occurs as tools are removed from the bin.  The only rule that the tool retriever must remember is that when the lot is opened, the Kanban card associated with that lot must be placed in the collection tray in the crib.  Then, at a specified time every day, the Kanban cards are gathered.  The six digit Kanban card number displayed on each card is then communicated to FIS via bar-code.  This bar code triggers creation of a replacement lot, Kanban card, and receipt ticket, as well as the “picking” of the replacement tool in the FIS warehouse.  The replacement lot of material is then delivered to the Customer.  A team member verifies that the quantity matches the receipt ticket quantity and then delivers the lot of material to the setup area as directed by the Kanban card (i.e. it specifies cell/area number, bin location).  The receipt ticket is then processed.  Processing of both usage and receipt cards can be done centrally utilizing a PC and bar code reader through our web site.

FIS has over 175 successful Kanban Tool Management systems installed at numerous customers nation-wide.

Advanced Features

The FIS Kanban system offers several other features. These features include:

• On-line usage data in monthly and quarterly “buckets” with averages
• Advanced Problem Detection reporting
• Shortage Detection Reporting
• Costing to Component Level
• Shipped but not Received
• Bar-coding including customized document layouts
• On-line item planning

Tooling and supply usage can be billed and tracked by a number of variables including, operation, manufacturing line, or other pertinent information.