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Kanban Made Simple

Demystifying and Applying Toyota's Legendary Manufacturing Process

by John M. Gross and Kenneth R. McInnis

		Publisher: AMACOM Pub. Date: 2003 ISBN: 9780814407639 No. pages: 256 Category: IT, Production & Logistics

In this summary you will learn

What the kanban demand scheduling system is
Why and how Toyota uses it to increase efficiency and quality
How it might work for you

Why you should read Kanban Made Simple

Visit any healthy manufacturing operation and you’ll see a buzz of bewildering activity - parts being moved on overhead cranes, raw materials being wheeled in, line operators checking their production schedules before they change the line over to their next product. Those production schedules, as this book suggests, can really be a hindrance. Operators become dependent on them, although the schedules may not accurately reflect customer demand. The solution? Kanban, which is based on having a communication system right on the factory floor that communicates key indications of customer behavior - buying, ordering, canceling - directly to the workers themselves. Production activity, therefore, is actually scheduled based on customer demand rather than on past expectations, with the advantage that you hold less inventory and operate more effectively. This book (which comes with a compact disc of implementation directions) gives clear insight into this powerful scheduling system employed efficiently by Toyota and other world-class companies. getAbstract.com highly recommends it to executives, managers and supervisors of companies that earn their living by making widgets more successfully.

About the Authors

John M. Gross is an avid student of quality control and industrial processes, having held various engineering and management positions in the food and automotive sectors. He is a licensed engineer, a Six Sigma Blackbelt, an ASQ Certified Quality Engineer and an AFE Certified Plant Engineer. He also wrote The Fundamentals of Preventive Maintenance. Kenneth R. McInnis is a Six Sigma Greenbelt who writes extensively on topics related to productivity, and has been published internationally in trade magazines. He has held various management positions in the apparel, automotive and food industries.

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