Overviews ... Scheduling & Sequencing In-Process Kanban &  Material Flow Inventory Synchronization Enterprise Integration & Collaboration

Kanban Techniques Traditionally, Kanban is a signaling system, often a card, with instructions for production or conveyance of material & items, in a pull system. Optiflow-Le adapts it as a sequence to provide pull forecasts and signals, electronically or otherwise. Kanban Replenishment Sequence provides the pull forecast. Pull signals are provided by an 'add-on' procedure. Kanban Loop (quantity of items & materials to be pulled) is the basic work-flow mechanism used to enforce lean principles. You can think of kanban loops as inventory buffers between predecessor and successor operations (between a supplying source and one or more consuming destinations). Kanban Loops are expressed in terms of 'Loop Quantities'.   In unit processing, typical loop quantity defaults to 1 or the lot size, whichever is higher.     In Batch processing, typical loop quantity will be equal to the batch quantity.    In Lean processing, kanban loop quantity can be any number between 1 and the max. quantity. Unit processing gives you a continuous flow. Batch processing gives you the buffered flow. You can specify a loop quantity which gives you a continuous flow and at the same time make sure that consumption destinations have enough buffer to keep producing, should an exception occur at the supplying source.  Each process / operation can have its own kanban loop quantity. Loop quantity of the pacemaker process (generally the last process) is used to align your inventory levels with actual consumption.  Rule of the thumb is :    Lower the loop quantity to attain a smooth continuous flow.    Increase the loop quantity to increase buffers between processes.  In some cases, you may not get a continuous flow even when loop quantities are low because of various other factors. In such cases, split the order into a number of smaller jobs and dock all these jobs in a queue. This should provide you with a continuous flow and at the same time take care of intermittent buffers.  Above techniques help in 'Receiving-to-Sequence', 'Manufacturing-to-Sequence' and 'Shipping-to-Sequence'. You have the complete control as to how operations are scheduled, sequenced and executed.  Please contact support@optiflow-le.com for further clarifications & assistance.