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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Place one empty cup in the area representing the warehouse for finished
parts.
- Place one empty cup in the warehouse for delivery to customer. This cup
should contain two finished parts.
- 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.)
- Move the empty cup from the warehouse to the area for final
assembly.
- The pupil responsible for the final assembly should assemble two new parts
and deliver the full cup to the delivery manager.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.)
- 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.