Introduction
The Kanban methodology, which originated in the world of manufacturing, started in the early 1940s. It was developed by Taiichi Ohno, an industrial engineer at Toyota Motor Corporation.
The Kanban methodology was introduced as a simple inventory control system to control, manage, and optimize work and inventory at every stage of the production.
Taiichi Ohno got the idea after visiting the United States where he observed that a supermarket shelves were stocked with just the right amount of each product to meet consumers demand. The inventory was restocked only when there was a visual signal to do so (an empty space on the shelf).
After coming back to Japan, he began to use paper cards for signaling and tracking demand in his factory, and named the new system “Kanban”.
The method was to attach cards to every finished product, and once the product was sold, the cards would move back to the production line.
Team members could only work on the new product as the card that signals a demand for it moved back to them in the production line. Every material used during production also had its own card attached, so that the demand signal would ultimately flow down through the whole production chain, ending on external suppliers.
The power of this method was such that Toyota went from operating at a loss to a global competitor it is today.
The Kanban name comes from two Japanese words, “Kan” meaning sign, and “Ban” meaning a board. So the concept of the Kanban methodology is to simply use visual cues to prompt the action needed to keep a process flowing.
The Kanban method as we know it today started in the 21st century, taking the principles from Toyota, and adopted by wide range of organizations in various industries.
According to the Project Management Institute, a Kanban board is a "visualization tool that shows work in progress to help identify bottlenecks and over commitments, thereby allowing the team to optimize the workflow."
ENOVIA Kanban Board Application
The 2023x FD03 release introduced a new application (widget), called Kanban Board, which is available with the Project Planner (XPP-OC) role. The Kanban Board app provides a simple way to visualize and mature all actionable work activities.
Using the Kanban Board application, you can create and configure a Kanban board according to your needs.
Define a new Kanban Board
- Create a Kanban Board; give it a title and a description.
- Define the process flow:
By default, three columns are created:
- 'To Do'
- 'In Progress'
- 'Completed'
You can add or remove columns, and modify their names according to your needs.
3. Limiting the number of cards in a column
You can specify a maximum number of cards that members can add to a column to control the workload assigned to a team.
When the limit is reached, users can no longer drop a new card in the column.
4. Add members to the Kanban Board.
5. Publish the Kanban Board to make it available to other members.
Working with Work Items in the Kanban Board
- Adding Work Items to the Kanban Board
You can now add objects to the Kanban Board and visualize them in the different columns.
Each object is represented by a single card in the Kanban Board.
Note: You can only add object types allowed for the Kanban Board.
2. Moving Cards to Another Column
You can move a card to another column of the Kanban Board when a task on the corresponding object has been completed.
Kanban Board and Maturity Stages
You have an option, to map each column in the Kanban Board with one or several actual maturity states (of objects).
By default, the columns are mapped with the following Issues maturity states:
- To Do column: Mapped with Draft and To Do maturity states
- In Progress: Mapped with In Work and In Approval maturity states
- Completed: Mapped with the Completed maturity state
In that case:
- When you add objects to the Kanban Board, the objects are added to the column mapped with their current maturity state.
- If you change the object's maturity state with the Maturity command, the corresponding card is automatically moved to the Kanban Board column mapped with this new maturity state.
- If you manually move a card to another column of the Kanban Board that is mapped with another maturity state, the maturity state of the corresponding object is changed to this maturity state.
Some important points to note when mapping Maturity States with Kanban Board columns:
- Since the maturity of objects can be modified outside of the Kanban Board, and therefore automatically moved to the column corresponding to their new maturity state, there might be more cards in a column than specified by the limit.
- You can map a maturity state with several columns. In that case, objects with these maturity states are added in the leftmost column that is mapped with the maturity state.
The following video illustrates the ‘Kanban Board’ application in more details:
Note: The video was created based on R2024xGA which will be released soon.
