Inventory | AllAboutLean.com

Real vs. Planned Data in Pull Systems

Christoph Roser — Tue, 30 May 2023 11:00:09 +0000

Pull systems like kanban and reorder point are a cornerstone of inventory management and fluctuation reduction in lean manufacturing. The production is managed based on ACTUAL consumption. Theoretically, it is also possible to include expected but not yet actual consumption. In this post, I will explain to you the concept behind it and why I ... Read more

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How IKEA Uses Drones for Inventory Management

Christoph Roser — Tue, 19 Jul 2022 11:00:52 +0000

In my last post I went a bit into the theory of where drones in manufacturing may be applicable. They are not really for transport, but there is a possibility to use drones to gather data – provided you don’t need an expensive pilot and there are preferably no workers around on which a drone ... Read more

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Drones in Manufacturing

Christoph Roser — Tue, 12 Jul 2022 11:00:58 +0000

A discussion of fancy new technology would be incomplete without mentioning drones. A simple Google search for “drone and manufacturing” returns around 72 million results. There is definitely a lot of buzz on drones and manufacturing. However, you probably have not yet seen a drone in manufacturing. This is because there are indeed very few ... Read more

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Relation between Quantity and Cost in Manufacturing

Christoph Roser — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 11:00:32 +0000

As you surely know, it is more efficient to produce larger quantities. This is the economy of scale. In a recent post I talked about the Power of Six, a rule of thumb for the relation between lead time and cost. In this post I will show you a rule of thumb for the relation ... Read more

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Calculating the Number of POLCA Cards

Christoph Roser — Tue, 28 Aug 2018 11:00:02 +0000

In my previous posts I explained how POLCA works and discussed the pros and cons of POLCA. In this post I will explain how to calculate the number of POLCA cards. While POLCA is overall a feasible method, I do have some critical comments on the method to calculate the number of POLCA cards. How ... Read more

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Advantages and Disadvantages of POLCA

Christoph Roser — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 11:00:54 +0000

In my previous post I described how POLCA (Paired-Cell Overlapping Loops of Cards) is supposed to work. Now let me look at the advantages and disadvantages of the method. Overall POLCA is a valid method of managing job shops. If it is the right one for you depends very much on your production system. Benefits ... Read more

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What Is POLCA?

Christoph Roser — Tue, 14 Aug 2018 11:00:31 +0000

POLCA stands for Paired-Cell Overlapping Loops of Cards with Authorization and was developed by Rajan Suri around 1990. It is sometimes mentioned alongside kanban and CONWIP as a production control system. Let me explain to you how POLCA works. In my next post I look at the pros and cons of POLCA. In my last ... Read more

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How to Deal With Long Delivery Times

Christoph Roser — Tue, 26 Sep 2017 11:00:44 +0000

Lean has a bunch of advanced but good tools for material delivery, like Just in Time, Just in Sequence, and Ship to Line. Using them is much easier on short distances and with short delivery times. Yet, sometimes you just don’t have the option of short delivery times. This blog post deals with the issues ... Read more

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