Kanban Overview— Exercises

Main Exercise

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to familiarize you with the basic principles of Kanban.

Steps: To complete this exercise, perform the following steps in the sequence shown.

Prerequisites: 16 white LEGO® pieces, 16 red LEGO pieces, 32 blue LEGO pieces and 15 cups (paper or plastic) representing containers

Note: This exercise is intended primarily for a classroom setting with multiple students.  In this case, the teacher should prepare items 1through 6 before the class starts. If this exercise is being completed by a self-study student, the student can complete this exercise by playing out all roles throughout the Kanban circuit.  Note that after steps 1 through 6 are completed, some pieces will be left over.  These extra pieces could be used to assemble a completed part to show how a final part should look. 

  1. We will produce a simple LEGO construction containing four blue pieces at the bottom, two white pieces in the middle and two red pieces at the top. The four blue pieces in the bottom is a subassembly. 
  2. For this we need areas (tables) designated for different tasks, such as warehouse, work center for subassembly, work center for final assembly and an area representing a warehouse for delivery of final goods to customer. 
  3. Fill seven cups with four LEGO pieces in each cup: Filling two cups with white pieces, two cups with red pieces, and three cups with blue pieces. Mark each cup, indicating what is inside: "Four Red," "Four White," etc. Place the seven cups in the 'warehouse' area. 
  4. Prepare two more cups with four blue pieces in each. Place them in the area where the work center for subassembly for the "blue bottom" is located. 
  5. Prepare three more cups: four pieces of white in one, four pieces of red in the second, and two assembled blue bottoms in the third. Place the three cups in the area where the work center for final assembly for our LEGO construction is located. 
  6. Place one empty cup in the area representing the warehouse for finished parts. 
  7. Place one empty cup in the warehouse for delivery to customer. This cup should contain two finished parts. 
  8. Assign one pupil to each area or table, Each pupil will be responsible his or her area (the warehouse, subassembly, final assembly, delivery to customer, etc.) 
  9. Move the empty cup from the warehouse to the area for final assembly. 
  10. The pupil responsible for the final assembly should assemble two new parts and deliver the full cup to the delivery manager. 
  11. The cups in the final assembly are now empty and the manager for the final assembly moves the cups, one at the time, to the subassembly area and warehouse. 
  12. The manager for subassembly assembles two new bottoms and delivers them in the cup to the final assembly area. Once the bottoms are assembled, any cups that held the blue pieces are empty. They are delivered to the warehouse. 
  13. The manager of the warehouse, delivers a new cup of blue pieces to the subassembly area after receiving the empty one. (The same procedure applies to the second cup.) 
  14. The manager in the warehouse delivers a new cup of white and red pieces to the final assembly area after receiving the empty ones from final assembly.