Visual management boards are communication tools in a lean environment. They give workers information at a glance. There are several types of visual management boards, including boards for continuous improvement, project status, safety notices, and point-of-use tools.
When developing a visual management board for any workplace, we need to focus on simplicity. Typically the focus is on depicting vital measurements/information and displaying them so that information is:
Consistent – all boards throughout the organisation are similar with minimal variation only as processes require it.
Easy to understand by all – all levels of the organisation use this system to get a quick sense of the performance of a production cell/line, team or department.
Visible from at least 40 feet – the use of colours is very helpful, here. Colours of green for hitting or exceeding a goal / target and red for a miss.
Metrics to consider for a visual management board include:
- People – Safety (any injuries), absenteeism (who’s here so we know what to work with)
- Quality – Scrap, defects and re-work
- Schedule – On track or not
- Cost – Usually productivity but could be efficiency as well
- Environment – 5S, waste reduction, environmental impacts and aspects.
How do you determine what to show on your visual management boards? Let’s break it down in some logical steps. Think about an employee, guest, supplier or corporate visitor walking into your work environment to their respective “work” area. What information do they need to see? Of course, the answer depends on your industry and what is important at your work environment but let me present a few ideas that you can consider.
As we first walk into a work environment there should be some high-level data points that will help us understand what our company and site values are and how we are performing against them. Most businesses should focus on People, Quality, Environment, Schedule and Cost. Given that those things are important to most of us we would expect to see high-level indications of the workplace’s position on them. These indications should not be too data-intense at this level.
As we move through the work environment the level of information should become more focused and relevant to the functions occurring in that area. We can still have the high level indicators but we will usually make them specific to the production cell/line, team or department.
As we move to the functional level work areas we will see yet a deeper, more focused level of information posted on the visual management boards. This information will speak to the daily or weekly planned work for that function. It will also include information on tasks that have come up that were not planned. This information will be the focus of the shift meeting. The area leader will review this information with the area employees to ensure alignment on what work is to be done. Again, there will be additional information that is relevant to that area. This could be the status of the training objectives. In some cases it could be information about continuous improvement projects in that area.
Of course the most important thing about using a visual management board is how it’s used. A successful implementation would be when production teams use them effectively as a vehicle to understand gaps in performance and address these with actions to right the ship and achieve their targets. The board should be as user-specific as possible, meaning that the people responsible for the process line/cell, team or department are the same people actually maintaining the visual management boards. It tends to build a sense of emotion behind the numbers; think of having to colour red two or three days in a row and what emotions are felt with a supervisor or within a team.
So what should you do to create or improve your visual management process? Use value stream mapping to truly understand where your bottlenecks are. Engage all of your employees in continuous improvement to relieve those bottlenecks. Develop focused key performance indicators that help measure the results and use visual management boards to communicate and align your organisation.
To get help with your Visual Management System project contact us today on 1300 789 132.