The Art of Kanban - Creative Safety Supply April 2014 | Page 10

The Art of Kanban
forgotten. Toyota eliminated a lot of human error, and therefore improved
productivity and profits.

At Toyota they knew that the demand for materials would need to be pulled by
employees so they needed a system to help them do that efficiently. By using
Kanban cards they were able to implement this system, along with a few other
rules, in order to make their company run effectively.

Although there were other manufacturing giants, like Ford Motor Company,
who used a manufacturing strategy, Toyota took it all one step further. Under
the direction of Taichii Ohno they also recognized the knowledge and
importance of listening to ideas from all employees. In addition they worked
on ways to use their systems for a variety of products or for multiple products
at the same time.

Soon the successes of Toyota lead to the Kanban process being used all over
Japan. Once the quality of the system was apparent it began to be used [