Visual management

At the gemba, abnormalities of all sorts arise every day. Only two posible situations exist in the
gemba: either the process is under control, ori t is out of control. The former situation means
smooth operations; the latter spells trouble. The practice of visual management involves the clear
display of gembutsu – the actual product, as well as charts, list, and records of performance, so
that both management and workers are continuously reminded of all teh elements that make
quality, cost, and delivery (QCD) successful- from a display of the overall strategy, thus visual
management constitutes an integral part of the foundation of the house of gemba.

MAKING PROBLEMS VISIBLE

Problems should be made visible in the gemba. If an abnormality cannot be detected, nobody can
manage the process. Thus the fist principle of visual management is to spotlight problems.

If rejects are being produced by a broken die on a press and nobody sees the rejects, there will son
be a mountain of rejects. A machine equipped with jidoka devices, however, will stop the moment
a reject is produced. The machine stoppage makes the problema visible.

When a hotel guest comes to the reception desk and asks for an aspirin or a list of good
restaurants nearby, the hotel´sinability to fulfill those needs constitutes an abnormality. By posting
a list of the most frequent requests received from guests, the hotel´s management can gain an
awareness of service deficiencies that need to be addressed. This is visual management: making
abnormalities visible to all employees- managers, supervisors, and workers- so that corrective
action can begin at once.

Most information originating from the gemba goes through many managerial layers before
reaching top management, and the information becomes increasingly abstract and remote from
reality as it moves upward. Where visual management is precticed, however, a manager can see
problems at a glance the moment he or she walks into the gemba and thus can give instructions
on the spot in real time. Visual management techniques enable gemba employees to solve such
problems.

The best thing that can happen in the gemba of a manufacturing Company is for the line to stop
when an abnormality is detected. Taiichi Ohno once said that an assembly line that never stops is
either perfect (imposible, of course) or extremely bad. When a line is stopped, everyone
recognizes that a problem has arisen and seeks to ensure that the line will not stop for the same
reason again. Line stoppage is one of the best examples of visual management in the gemba.

STAYING IN TOUCH WITH REALITY

If the first reason for visual management´s existence is to make problems visible, the second is to
help both workers and supervisors stay in direct contact with the reality of the gemba. Visual
management is a practical method for determining when everything is under control and for
sending a warning the moment an abnormality arises. When visual management functions,
everybody in the gemba can manage and improve processes to realice QCD.

When we take our customers on tours of Japanese factories, our hosts usually show us their
display boards that allow everybody to see the production Schedule and how the work is
progressing. The formats are different for each plant. Some use whiteboards, whereas others use
paper; some use magnets, but the display boards are always clear and easy to understand, serving
the purpose of helping people by allowing them to satay in touch with reality on the gemba.

In an era of high-tech computer screens, these simple visual aids sometimes look arcane to an
outsider, yet they are one of the most essential and powerful lean tools. Adopting this visual
approach to management was an important step in the lean journey of Speciality Silicone
Fabricators (SSF), a multisite high- technology contract manufacturer that has been working on a
lean transformation for nearly 10 years.

In the mid-2000s, SSF was at a turning point. The Company was facing a significant growth surge,
but at the same time, the market was shifting to a lower-volume, higher-mix production. This
created a muri situation where the existing scheduling methods were overburdened.
Compounding the problem was an older facility with multiple rooms that made “seeing” the
production process difficult and a customer care department that was located in another building.

According to SSF president Kevin Meyer, on- time delivery was poor, cycle time was approximately
10 times what it could be if non-value-added time was removed, and the customer care
department spent most of its time explaining delays to customers. Meyer explains how SSF used
Kaizen to turn the situation around:

We decided to try to capture all production work orders for one key value stream, and their
status, on a manual magnetic whiteboard inside the production cleanroom. The initial format was
chosen by the Value Stream Manager for that operation and was both time- and process-
sequenced. Magnets were used to denote Jobs and included basic customer, quantity, and due-
date information. Soon afterwards, in an attempt to share this first pass at visual information, a
webcam was installed that allowed for the whiteboard to be viewed across the Company intranet.
Customer care began using this to provide more accurate information to customers.

By capturing all of the production work order information, combined with other lean tools such as
value-stream mapping and 5s, we were able to rapidly reduce cycle time and improve on-time
delivery. Customer care now focused on updating customers with good news, instead of bad. In
fact, the webcam has been removed.

The production whiteboards have been deployed in all value streams at all plants. Importantly, no
single format was required-each value stream developed their format independently base on what
was important to their processes, products, and systems. Also of critical importance was and is the
concept that production operators own their boards and can continually evolve the format and
types of information displayed. Ideas are shared between value streams, both infomally and
formally at quarterly continuous

Improvement Team meetings. Operators are responsible for moving their magnets and can visually
see and react to potential bottleneck situations. When combined with cross-training and TWI, this
creates a very flexible operations organization. One value stream has even integrated leader
standard work into the production control whiteboard.

This example shows that when employees “see” their contribution to the plant Schedule, a process
that they in fact own as a group, they collaborate better, and their work improves. This concept is
so simple that it is easy to overlook, but it is part of the people foundation. It is important to never
forget that visual tools have enormous power to drive improvement. This is why 5s, which sets
standards and makes abnormality quickly visible, is always the first step and the last step in each
kaizen journey.