Magnatag InSight
The whiteboard and how it helps us brainstorm, innovate, motivate and create
How to Improve On-Time Delivery By 22%
Wed Jun 11 2014By: Tom Shaw
Here at Magnatag my Visible System teammates and I frequently work with customers who need to solve scheduling and information display problems in a production or service environment.
We often hear how slowdowns occur when the information employees need to process a job is not readily available. Recently we worked with a customer whose job stopped in several departments before passing it on to the next group. Once we realized their work flow could be defined by a series of steps or stages, the challenge became one of communicating that information to employees. What they need to know is the status of each job, what is coming next in the pipeline and where the bottlenecks are.
Sometimes it's easy to identify a bottleneck, solving it can be more difficult.
One customer, Mario, explained that his “production team knows exactly what's involved in the manufacturing process, but the flow breaks down due to a lack of communication about jobs between departments. From design to purchasing to hardware and fabrication to paint and finishing though installation, everyone's hunting down the job schedule & details to determine what to do next. It's a constant source of delays and a cause of mistakes."
We showed Mario our Do-Done Step Tracker® (DDXT) magnetic whiteboard with built-in T-card file and 'the lights went on'. His job numbers and customer names are placed down the left andjob stages are placed across the top. Red, yellow and green magnets show job location and status. Writing space is available for date received, due date and customer representative in columns along with notes and a printable T-Card for job details. This board layout and shaded rows make is easy for Mario’s employees to see exactly what’s happening with every job in the shop and the corresponding T-card has all pertinent job information listed.
Helping people like Mario is a lot of fun!
From the beginning Mario knew a magnetic white board would probably do the trick. When he got to the Magnatag web site he knew he was in the right place. He called us for advice on which board would show just the right amount of information in a way that would be easy to see and understand. He says the DDXT board is working perfectly for him and on time delivery has increased by 22%.
We often hear how slowdowns occur when the information employees need to process a job is not readily available. Recently we worked with a customer whose job stopped in several departments before passing it on to the next group. Once we realized their work flow could be defined by a series of steps or stages, the challenge became one of communicating that information to employees. What they need to know is the status of each job, what is coming next in the pipeline and where the bottlenecks are.
Sometimes it's easy to identify a bottleneck, solving it can be more difficult.
One customer, Mario, explained that his “production team knows exactly what's involved in the manufacturing process, but the flow breaks down due to a lack of communication about jobs between departments. From design to purchasing to hardware and fabrication to paint and finishing though installation, everyone's hunting down the job schedule & details to determine what to do next. It's a constant source of delays and a cause of mistakes."
We showed Mario our Do-Done Step Tracker® (DDXT) magnetic whiteboard with built-in T-card file and 'the lights went on'. His job numbers and customer names are placed down the left andjob stages are placed across the top. Red, yellow and green magnets show job location and status. Writing space is available for date received, due date and customer representative in columns along with notes and a printable T-Card for job details. This board layout and shaded rows make is easy for Mario’s employees to see exactly what’s happening with every job in the shop and the corresponding T-card has all pertinent job information listed.
Helping people like Mario is a lot of fun!
From the beginning Mario knew a magnetic white board would probably do the trick. When he got to the Magnatag web site he knew he was in the right place. He called us for advice on which board would show just the right amount of information in a way that would be easy to see and understand. He says the DDXT board is working perfectly for him and on time delivery has increased by 22%.
Categories:Factory and Production
