Andon Lean Manufacturing

Andon Lean ManufacturingThe Andon Lean Manufacturing ToolAndon is a isual control?device that showsmachine, line or process status. It is a veryuseful tool in lean manufacturing systems wherethe main goal is to reduce production waste in alllevels.Using andon boards can help the industry guide,monitor and ensure productivity. Andon boardsalso double as early warning devices becauseaudible alarms or warning messages usuallyaccompany them to communicate a problem.

With andon boards installed in lean manufacturingwarehouses, workers can instantly see orderstatus, priorities and many relevantproductivity measurements even from more than 100feet away. Critical areas in lean manufacturingwhere andon boards can be used are manufacturing,inventory management, storage, receiving,picking and shipping.By using andon boards in a lean manufacturingsystem, there is evidently better coordination oforders, parts, priorities and flow thus animprovement of customer service.In shipping for example, andon boards can displayqueuing information, priorities, pick-up anddeparture and wait times, truck directions andother specifics which ensure fast and correctdeliveries. Inventory accuracy is assured byseeing to it that proper items are picked.

Because of andon boards, lean manufacturingsystems do not rely on white boards, clip boardsand word of mouth and even emails and intranet asa communication tool. There is little room forerror, therefore, and a reduction of 搘 ork inprogress?or lag time between cycles.Most andon boards have the ablity to project anumber of 4?characters. Requests normally referto x number of lines and y number of characters.You can run for example 5 lines of 30 characterseach which implies 4?characters.Andon boards can also be used to display smallercharacters as needed. 2.1?high characters areusually used for smaller areas with 100 ft. orless of viewing distance. Some adaptive andonboards can display different character sizes atonce. are available in single-sided anddouble-sided veerWindows applications can be installed inside

andon board displays and all these will operateon the boards just like they run on PCs. Excel canbe used to display charts and graphs live.Explorer can display internet or intranet sitesas well.Other HMI applications like GE Cimplicity,Wonderware, Visual Plant, Iconics or other SCADAapplications can also be run on andon boards justlike they are run on a desktop computer.Andon boards have enhanced lean manufacturingtremendously. However, andon displays have, fora long time, been a basic but very expensiveaddition to lean manufacturing systems.New technologies had to be developed to furtherenhance these communication tools and reduce morewaste. Before, the data that andon boards displayare usually fixed and restricted to single wordheadings such as 搕 arget?or 揳 ctual? and data islost once the display changes.

Now, Gemba Solutions have developed a new model,the OEE Impact Andon Board which providesflexible and displays which the user canconfigure via a PC. This can also be viewed on LCDor plasma screen.The OEE Impact Andon Board creates anotherdimension for lean manufacturing as its softwarelets you know how you fare against targets inreal-time by calculating TAKT times. A productionplan for machines and lines can alsoautomatically account planned breaks.A profile of progress can also be views within aspecific period of time or within work shifts. TheOEE Impact Andon Board also can provide ahistorical summary report showing shift, daily,weekly performance vis-?vis TAKT times, targets,rejects and down-times.These new kinds of andon boards are very helpful

in lean manufacturing as they let you know howwell your production is going. In the event thatresults are less than what you want them to be,the OEE Impact Andon Board can also utilize apowerful software to find out where problem areasand bottlenecks are.This helps lean manufacturers decide what tochange in the process and later check on summaryreports whether, in changing the process resultshave indeed improved. This shows that with the OEEImpact Andon Board, no data is ever lost.