Tag: informative boards

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5s Implementation 5s technique lean visual managment Visual Management Visual Management Boards visual management survey

Visual Communication through Informative Boards

Visual Management Boards or Informative Boards are designed and developed by a group of experts from Visualmitra having various industry experience & knowledge. The main objective of these boards is to update, monitor performance, control critical points of important processes, display production/scheduling/dispatch plans, 5s duties, employee assignments etc. by manually writing, using magnets or by having Acrylic Pockets to store important papers for individual process.
Visualmitra also offers Customization services for Designing these boards as per organizations specific requirements along with branding (name + logo) on the board.

Why Informative Boards are Necessary?

In order to improve performances, these boards will help be transparent to the overall department such that every individual associated with the process will know if his/her activity is going as per planned or not. These Visual Management Boards are widely considered to be a effect tool of communication as all information is displayed at one glance.

Such boards will not be jumbled with unnecessary data, will be precisely focused on the current process, straightforward to the working activity, will be positioned near the working procedure and appealing enough to engage the entire workforce. All these necessary tools will help the organization to measure daily, weekly, monthly output of the process.

Importance of Informative Boards

Using Visual Management Boards, one can update the information manually by using a marker or using magnets on a white board to pin point the activity, display and store number of information using acrylic pockets. Informative boards are considered to be an effective tool of immediate knowledge transfer and it also helps in individual growth in terms of time management & work competency.

Transparent information manages to build a positive work culture, engages staff connection, teamwork efforts which results in a effective output. Such visual management boards monitor and guide daily work processes, therefore enhancing organization continuous improvement practices.

Types of Informative Boards

1] Performance White Boards
2] Compliance Boards
3] Policies & Work Instructions

For further understanding of the effective Visual Management Tools, Call Now At +919820061281 and Book your Free Consultation Session Now ! and visit our website visualmitra

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Visual Management

When metrics matter – why you need visual management

Business Strategy

Why does sports fans glance at the scoreboard every so often when all the action is clearly on the field? The answer is obvious and very simple: the scoreboard generates and maintains interest. It provides unambiguous feedback about performance and answers important questions about the status of the game. Visual management shares real-time information and feedback about the status of your operations.

Visual management system is implemented mainly to ensure problem-solving and focuses on continuous improvement, with the specific aim of reducing response time and providing teams with the information they need to eliminate waste and other problems such as poor quality. It’s a fundamental part of empowerment and ownership. By providing teams with feedback, they are given the responsibility and accountability for their actions. It also leads to transparency in operation and even more efficient.

Helping lean principles ‘come to life’

One of the first principles of lean management is to directly observe the work as activities, connections and flows. When the work is visual and clear it becomes much easier for workers/ employees to directly observe and understand the progress. Visual management is therefore the most important and fundamental aspect of lean principle. Visual management technique actually helps the lean principles ‘come to life’.

Similar to an impressive and well-delivered speech that drives people to act, the skillful and judicious application of visual management techniques can move the business practices to a higher level of realization and efficiency. When visual management is implemented in the right way, it becomes easy to see and understand the workflow and its progress. It helps to:

  • identify in control and out-of-control situations
  • identify high levels of variability
  • identify trends which are positive or negative

A visual workplace is always easier to manage over time. With techniques that make performance more visible, less time is wasted in finding problems and performance-related issues. Visual management makes it easier to implement continuous improvement, the true objective of Lean principle.

In an ideal scenario, visual management should be integrated with the wider organization’s management system. Once visual displays have been installed and teams and employees at all levels have access to this visual key information, it should extend to updating performance boards/ informative boards on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

As per the situation and department, a daily or weekly review should take place. Systemic level reviews should be conducted for departmental boards at a time that suits the environment (i.e. weekly, fortnightly). More strategic initiatives are to be reviewed at the senior management level on a monthly basis, with key measures reviewed daily and weekly.

Visual management is considered to be a company-wide ‘nervous system’ that allows all employees to understand how they affect the operation’s overall performance. It allows people to understand how their actions and decisions affect or impact the overall strategic direction of the company. Visual management displays provide an open window to your manufacturing plant or factory performance, making the same unbiased information available to people at various hierarchies in an organization be it an owner, manager, operator, and even visitor.

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Benefits Fascility Visual Management Visual Management

The Magic of Visual Management At Workplace

Visual Management is one of the essential tools that we make use of at our work and home lives that you may not have even noticed. But once you understand what visual management exactly is all about, you’ll be seeing it everywhere!

Visual management is a tool that is used for lean management for making the work culture of that place better. A visual management technique makes use of effective visual displays to convey a certain message in an efficient and effective manner with minimum efforts. These visual displays can be are as follows:-

1] Data Displays like informative boards, performance white boards, safety calendars, MIS reports etc.
2] Guiding tools like floor marking tapes, stickers and area identification boards, signboards etc.
3] Shape cutouts for easy identification of the designated place of a tool,instrument or an equipment.
4] Flowcharts and layouts like work flow instructions, standard operating procedure (SOP), First In First Out (FIFO) layout etc.
Awareness posters like safety posters, Motivational posters, Posters for International quality management techniques, Business excellence posters etc.

Effects of Visual management at a workplace

Visual management exhibits crystal clear transparency and eliminates the distance between the higher management and production floor level of workers. Information is not hidden at any given point, and the whole organization is united on the same success goals. This forms unity and team spirit among all the the employees.

Many lean management techniques and principles rely on visual management that includes floor marking tapes to the large visual display boards and performance boards, sign boards etc. Visual management acts as the key sustaining force for many well-known lean techniques like 5S, standard work, total productive maintenance (TPM), Gemba walk and Kanban. It involves many visual indications that help to create a better work environment.

It suggests the use of different colors and labels to mark each item in the workplace differently. Labeling and marking gauges, oil levels and lube levels are all examples of visual controls that help the employees to easily detect abnormalities at a glance thereby promoting preventive maintenance and reducing the production down time.

Visual management is not just making data and metrics visible on a wall, it is a real-time visual display of the data that allows the team to take immediate actions to solve issues or support the production process. It thus promotes constant monitoring of the data and taking immediate actions accordingly.

The safety visuals help to make people aware of the possible hazards and situations within the work environment. It is very necessary to define the location of hazards as well as location of safe aids like first aid station, and location for personal protection equipment, Safety shower, eye wash station etc. Safety signs and safety instructions also plays an important role in accident prevention.

Benefits of visual management at a workplace

• Sharing all the Information with others to avoid any miscommunication
• Communicating the standards to attain uniformity throughout the processes.
• Implementing the standards to maintain smooth running of the processes.
• Bringing attention to irregularities in the processes for further action to be taken.
• Taking immediate actions against the irregularities when they happen to avoid such instances in future.
• Preventing such Irregularities from taking place for nonstop high quality output.

Fun facts about visual learners.

• 80% of people remember what they see or do rather than what the read or hear
• 65% of the world’s population are visual learners.
• 40% of human nerve fibers are linked to the retina.
• Humans are capable of getting the approximate understanding of a visual scene in less than 1/10th of a second.
• An average human eye can register up to 36,000 visual messages every hour.
• All the emotions and the visual information are processed in the same part of the human brain.
• Human brain processes visual information 60,000 times quicker than audio and written information.

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Factory Visual Management Factory Visual Management Projects Visual Management

Visual Factory – A Way towards Prosperity

The basic concept of a visual workplace is putting up graphical and illustrative detailing of progress, process or department workflow. According to studies, the visual representation helps employees to understand, retain and reciprocate information more effectively within a short time.

Do you want to implement a visual factory within your premises? Especially, when you are handling heavy equipment and large machinery, the caution booklet will run for pages. You cannot expect every floor worker to be well versed in English to learn those warning instructions. This can be easily rectified with a visual factory.

Visual cues everywhere

You need to pay heed to the safety signs. Whenever your worker steps into a workspace, there should be cues about how to do certain things, what not to do and so on. These visual cues should not be hard to find. Starting from labels on containers to color codes to indicate dangerous equipment, you should cover as much visual information as possible with your cue.

Where should you implement these cues?

1] Walls – Wall safety signs and safety posters about each equipment, caution details and even safety information like ‘wear helmet’ would be effective.
2] Floor – floor markings will help your workers to have excellent communication. For instance, use a blue line for workers moving from equipment A to B to C and so on. Use when a red line for workers moving from equipment C to B to A. This will reduce collision, especially when your workers have heavy objects in their hands. If you want workers to stay away from equipment when it is in use, floor markings would be a good solution.
3] Machines – Do not worry about sticking stickers on your million-dollar equipment. It is for over-all productivity. Should your employee close the lid of your food processing machine before switching it on to avoid spillage? Stick a sticker near the switch reminding them to close the lid. Thus, whenever your worker moves towards the switch, the sticker will act as a reminder.
4] Ceilings – The visual cues in ceilings are usually for pipe and wire markings. In the case of any hanging equipment, you can use it to indicate the maximum load to add.

Update visual cues

There are two reasons to update visual cues regularly. Your factory environment can fade out the informative boards. Just a yellow circle on the wall would not mean anything if the writing or the symbol on it has faded away. The second reason is human perception. If a visual cue has been in a single position for quite a long time, the human brain tends to overlook it. It is quite similar to the concept of people who live near the beach will adapt themselves to not hear the wave sound. Updating cues and using new stickers would induce their brain to pay more attention.

Say, you have a blue line and a red line on the floor. What is the point of those markings if your employee is not aware of what each color stands for? Always educate them about the cues. There is nothing wrong with having a periodic seminar or workplace training to refresh their memory. Every new employee should be trained about every single visual cue in the factory; even those which are not in his area of work.