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Error. Since most systems are easy to modify, this works quite well. Page 7 MQIP Management Consultants Co. LTD Your Professional Quality Improvement Partner . Tel: 02033689262, 38761191 A Kanban System Case Study A kanban system schedules the production of six people assembling industrial air cleaners from sheet metal and purchased parts. They build 15 basic units and many variations. Ten assembly cells have fixtures, tools and parts ready at all times. Each cell produces one or two basic models. One to three people can staff any cell. An adjacent warehouse holds a small finished stock of each standard model. Charts on the following page display the data that was the basis for system design. The ProductVolume Analysis shows each basic model and the average number of units sold each day. These are longterm averages and do not reflect the daily order flow. Three models represent the bulk of demand. Five additional models have medium demand levels. Seven models have extremely low demand. The designers decided to have a stockpoint in the warehouse where orders could be quickly pulled and shipped. Only the high and medium demand items would have a kanban stock. When a unit was withdrawn from the kanban stock, a card would go back to the production area to signal that withdrawal. If a lowvolume item appeared on an order, a special onetime kanban card would immediately go to production where the item would be built before day’s end. The Daily Order Profile shows the total number of units ordered each day for a twomonth period. It appears that on most days, the demand is fairly constant at about 25 units. However, very heavy days seem to punctuate this steady pattern at about 3week intervals. The Order Profile is another way to present this same data. It shows on most days order volume clusters around 2025 units with a few days of very heavy volume. If the kanban system was designed to satisfy the heavy order days, inventories would be huge. There was some doubt within the design team about the feasibility of kanban. Weird order patterns like this should and, in this case did, raise questions: ? Why the sudden increases? ? Why are the somewhat regular? ? Where does this volume originate? Upon investigation, the designers found that most orders came from domestic distributors. These distributors ordered in very small quantities but there were many distributors around the . The cumulative daily volume from these many small orders tended to be steady at about 2025 units. The large spikes resulted from a single, overseas distributor that ordered large quantities for ocean shipment. This was a different market and different distribution channel. Fast delivery of these large orders was necessary for the domestic market but not for the overseas distributor. It was decided to design the kanban system for the domestic orders and make special arrangements for the overseas distibutor. When a