Withdrawal kanban

How to read it

A kanban is a signalling device. The Lean Enterprise Institute says the word is Japanese for sign or signboard and that kanban come in two uses: production kanban tell a process to make parts, and withdrawal kanban authorise moving parts to a downstream process. The UW-Stout study describes the withdrawal kanban icon as a card or device that tells a material handler to take parts from a Supermarket to the receiving process. The Institute adds that withdrawal kanban can be internal, between processes, or go to an outside supplier, and that supplier kanban for distant firms have typically become electronic.

Also searched as: kanban card vsm, value stream map withdrawal kanban, withdrawal kanban icon, withdrawal kanban symbol.

Look-alikes

A production kanban, drawn on the same card shape, tells a process to make a set number of parts; the EPA toolkit also has a signal kanban that shows when a batch is needed. A kanban post is the place where cards wait to be collected. The EPA’s toolkit notes that a company can use an existing set of symbols or create its own, as long as it keeps them consistent, so a map’s key decides which card is which.