With an increasing size of the overall system, the controlling of Kanban loops can quickly become confusing, if you do not have the appropriate tools to manage this.
Therefore the e-Kanban system IKS has 3 modules to monitor the system continuously, to optimize it and to adapt it:
IKS Early Warning System => it allows the timely detection of possible material shortages to avoid missing parts.
IKS Kanban Analyzer => allows a selective and continuous analysis and optimization of the Kanban system.
IKS Demand Manager => enables the fast and easy re-calculation of the Kanban levels for many Kanban loops.
IKS Early Warning System
In a manual Kanban system material shortages are often noticed just in that moment when the last part is taken from the last available Kanban box. But then it is too late!
When inventory has been reduced to a minimum, the risk of missing parts and material shortages increase significantly!
The IKS Kanban Early Warning System enables to recognize Kanban loops quickly when reaching the safety stock level or have reached a corresponding inventory range.
The Kanban administrator or the responsible buyer can react directly in time on possible material shortages and avoid missing parts.
The IKS Kanban Early Warning System offers the following advantages:
- Simple and visual information for all responsible persons
- Easy and fast detection of potential material shortages
- Detection of Kanbans which ar delivered late
- Provision of useful information for the supplier (via IKS Web Portal)
IKS Demand Manager
Due to certain parameters such as number of products and variants, order behavior of customers, flexibility, etc., sometimes it is necessary to adjust the number of Kanbans in short cycles to the new situation.
With an increasing number of Kanban loops this is very complicated and time-consuming to do in a manual Kanban system. With IKS kanban you will be fully controlling all the demand deviations and spikes.
The IKS Kanban Demand Manager offers you a decisive advantage:
First, this innovative IKS module can re-calculate a large number of Kanban loops quickly, and second, the Kanban card handling will be regulated in the IKS system automatically by itself.
Hereby, the IKS Kanban Demand Manager uses either
- newly loaded demand lists (e.g. on the basis of real orders)
- demand based on historical data (calculated by IKS)
- or a mix of new and historical requirements
IKS Kanban Analyzer
In a classic manual Kanban system, the parameters for Kanban calculation (demand, lead-time, safety factor, container quantity) are defined once at the beginning. A review whether these factors are still fine and, therefore, whether the number of Kanbans is still correct, means in many cases a lot of effort, time and trouble.
If the sizing of Kanban levels is wrong, this has serious implications:
- Amount of Kanbans for the items is too low: risk of (permanent) missing parts
- Amount of Kanbans for the items is too high: too high inventory levels and thus potential for optimization
The IKS Kanban Analyzer provides a variety of pre-defined analysis and KPIs to monitor and optimize the Kanban system continuously (with a minimum of time effort).
The opportunities include:
- Current and historical inventory and its progression
- All measured times (by changing the Kanban status) such as delivery lead-time, waiting times, etc.
- Inventory ranges
- Inventory turns
- Delivery reliability
- Control mechanisms for production and external suppliers
- Current Kanban Master Data Controlling
- and much more…
Advantages for you:
- Ensuring 100% material availability
- Simultaneous optimization of inventory levels
- Monitoring of delivery lead-times and delivery reliability of external suppliers
- Optimization of Kanban container sizes
- Simple and clear control of the Kanban system (internal and external processes)
- Documented analysis (with extensive graphs and reports)
e-Kanban perspectives
Click on your Kanban theme below to get more information!
