[原创]Introduction to Electronic Kanban Systems

 

More and more companies are using various electronic kanban systems to pull materials from their suppliers. Below is the briefing a typical web based electronic kanban system:

 

The on hand stock and consumption data of an electronic kanban system is often _updated once a day by uploading the information from a manufacturing company’s ERP system that generates and stores such inventory and consumption information. The vendor only needs a PC to access to the Internet and logon on the electronic kanban system (a website) using authorized passwords, the inventory and consumption status of the part supplied by them is then at their fingertips. What they are required to do is also very simple:

l         acknowledge the consumed kanban number

l         arrange and schedule the production of the part according to the consumed kanban number

l         schedule kanbans that are going to be shipped to the buying company

l         ship the kanban numbers to the buying company.

 

All those activities are typically conducted and visualized by five buttons, which are shown below:

On hand                     

Stock and              Consumed             Acknowledged       Scheduled To                Shipped

Received                                                                        Ship

10

0

3

0

5

 

 

 

 

   To be more specific, according to the situation shown above, the vendor needs to click the consumed button to move the 5 kanbans from the Consumed column to the Acknowledge column, thus sending a singal to the buying company that the vendor has acknowledged the consumption and is going to plan and schedule its production accordingly. If the 5 kanbans have been produced and the ship date is to be scheduled, the vendor just clicks the Acknowledged button, the 5 kanbans is then moved to the Scheduled To Ship column. When the 5 kanbans are to be loaded into a van or other vehicle heading for the buying company, the vendor just click the Scheduled To Ship button to move the 5 kanbans to the Shipped column, thus informing the buying company that the part is on the way to the buying company.

 

Of course, some basic but important parameters such as kanban size and the total number of kanbans have to be set up before this can occur. And those parameters should be set up and maintained properly.

 

As we can see, with such an electronic kanban, the communication and interaction between the buyer and the vendor will be greatly simplified. This way both parties may have more time and energy to focus on more value adding activities.

 

At last, it be kept in mind that not all parts are suitable for such kanban transactions. As a rule, parts with short lead times and stable demands are suitable for kanban transactions.

推荐到鲜果： 查阅更多相关主题的帖子: Electronic Kanban Supplier Management