Many who are aware of Kanban as a discipline in stock and supply chain management are less aware of how it could help their own business and their customers. MD of precision engineering company Broanmain Plastics Wilf Davis assesses his company’s own experience of the system, where it works best – and situations where the benefits are harder to gauge.
As a specialist business offering an array of plastics moulding technologies to a diverse manufacturing customer base, Broanmain, which has been in existence for more than 60 years, first applied a Kanban system to stock management over 15 years ago. This was initially at the specific request of one customer, Siemens, to meet its own requirements. Since then, Broanmain has offered it wherever the benefits are clear, to the point where over half of our business is structured around Kanban.
The first system was first introduced by Toyota in 1950s Japan. What we have learned over time is the system can be a great option, benefiting both ourselves as a supplier and for customers. However, it won’t necessarily work for all types of end product or customer, and may make commercial sense for only a given number of components.
Kanban shapes supplier-customer relationships, but can also impact on internal processes
