According to Sam Bayer, President of Datacraft Solutions (www.datacraftsolutions.com). “Kanban implies partnership. Both parties have a responsibility to share information and strive towards process improvement. Sounds great in theory but how do you enable it in practice? Share real time “actionable” information between both parties.” This level of e-kanban Lean efficiency is achievable.

Fax Kanban is not Efficient and not Lean

At ten minutes per fax, someone is spending 3.5 hours per day in administration time. That inefficiency results in less time to utilize more suppliers or improve the relationships with existing suppliers.

Furthermore, even if 99% of those faxes are trouble free procurement signals, four faxes per month are going to be problematic and dilute the entire rationale for a lean manufacturing operation. Suppliers claim they did not receive the fax kanban; suppliers cannot make the shipment date requested and expedited shipping fees are incurred, or worse, there will be a stockout which will negatively impact customer service levels.

According to Sam Bayer, President of Datacraft Solutions Process improvements with existing suppliers will further reduce lead times and inventory levels and bring more suppliers onto the system.

Datacraft Solutions www.datacraftsolutions.com Sam Bayer e-mail protected from spam bots 919-667-9804

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