Kanbans, Forecasting and MRP

Target Audience: Production Planners, Systems Analysts, Production Management.

Supply and logistics professionals. People who work in companies which supply component parts to industry. People concerned with managing plant and logistics on an hour by hour or day by day basis.

Course Objectives: Attendees to be able to identify types and roles of kanban and other JIT systems. To identify the longer horizon of MRP as distinct from the short term role of pull systems such as Kanbans. To recognise the planning gap between the two systems and to discuss management strategies to plan across the gap.

Topics: Kanbans.

Kanban philosophy. Production kanbans and replenishment kanbans. Kanbans and other factory floor documentation. Kanbans to control work in process. Kanbans and quality. Kanbans and plant layout. Pull versus push in factories. Examples of kanban cards. Design of kanban cards.

Time horizons

The conflict between supplier lead time, customer planning horizons and production lead time. Where MRP and kanbans fit. Capacity planning with kanbans and MRP. Reconciling a customer provided long term schedule with short term reality. The need for forecasting short term.

Calendars

The customer's kanban interval can be daily or sub-daily, while the customer's MRP interval can be weekly or monthly. The importance of understanding the customer's production calendar. The role of calendars and strategies for forecasting future kanbans.

Materials Attendees get a copy of all visuals used in the course and a working model computer spreadsheet including the kanban forecasting calculations.

Duration Half day