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e-Kanban software IKS creates

Transparency

Production if covering a wide range of diversity tends tobecome complicated and unclear. Manual Kanban systemsare limited to a certain degree of complexity. At the Carlisleplant, Pirelli has combined its manual Kanban System with ane-Kanban software called IKS and thus increased productiontransparency and efficiency.

Pirelli the 5th largest tyre manufacturer in the worldproduces almost all kinds of tyres ranging from cars, trucks,and motorcycles to agricultural machines. All tyres come in avast range of sizes and patterns, depending on vehicle,purpose, weather condition and environment.

Pirelli UK Tyres Ltd. is responsible for all the Pirelli's grouptyres production in the UK. In Carlisle 12.000 to 14.000 carand SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle) tyres are produced everyday. The production runs 24 hours a day, seven days aweek.

Pirelli has been working for many years with a manualKanban system based on a pull logic in which material isproduced only upon call for more input materials by thefollowing operation. The card or the ticket-to-produce thatidentifies the container of materials and initialises theproduction of parts or compounds is called "Kanban".

In 1995, the Carlisle plant won the TPM Award (TotalProductivity Maintenance). This award is given annually tofactories that have attained extremely high quality andefficiency standards in their production process.

In Carlisle, the enormous range of different tyres led to ahighly complex production, however, lacking transparency.The application of a software backing up the manual Kanbansystem was inevitable. So three years ago IKS, an e-Kanbansoftware, was implemented.

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IKS Case Study

Pirelli Tyres

User Requirements

The following requirements on thesoftware were defined:

to ensure the transparency of thecurrent Kanban situation

to assist communication and acquisitionof data during the production process

to visualise the dynamic Kanban jobs inthe sequence of their priority

to integrate existing BDE systems forthe logging of Kanban situations

to show all stock levels of the Kanbansystem

to provide a connection with theexisting PPS system in order toexchange information and integratethem into the supply chain

The software had to meet several maintargets as follows:

Optimising the Run in/Run outmanagement of the products, whichallows to reduce intermediate stocklevels when finishing a production runor lot or when starting a newproduction run

Planning of parallel machines; there aregroups of machines accomplishingsimilar tasks, but some products canonly be produced by certain machines.IKS helps the user to time theapplication of the machines

Managing quality controls

Real time communication, e.g. when anorder of production is changed

Assisting lots that run once only; thisallows to run pilot batches with aminimum of cost

Realisation

The Kanban system is organised withinthe IKS module "Kanban Manager ".At any time all relevant data of theproduction process can be retrieved. Thusall workers within the production line aresupported in their daily decisions

The IKS Kanban Board , an electronicKanban table, visualises all currentproduction situations for differentproducers in a sequence to their priority.Jobs can be selected according to anywork centres (machines, product groupsetc.). When the availability of a materialchanges the display on the Kanban Boardchanges too. The visualisation of stocklevels and production jobs makes prioritiestransparent at a glance.

Every work centre has an own KanbanBoard at its command, showing theworkers all necessary information in realtime and thus making work schedulingeasy. The indications on the KanbanBoards are the basis for decisions thatconcern the planning of production andset-up processes. At any time the workersare able to react to changes flexibly and intime.

At Pirelli about 40 people are using theKanban Boards, approximately 250 peopleare consuming the Kanban cards.Pirelli defined three processes dependingon the Kanban Boards to organise theirproduction. The materials produced bythese processes are used by 65 machines.The Kanban consumers register theKanban situations with the help of barcodescanners.

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As the workers are already used tomanual Kanban the training focussed onhandling the PC and the software.The operators were trained "off the job",so they were able to evaluate and test thesoftware without ruffle.

On the average Kanban Board usersneeded one hour of training to get alongwith the system. The consumers of theKanbans were trained about half an hour.

When the application went life on thefactory floor, both IT and ProductionPlanning staff gave 24 hour support forthe first three days.

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About manufactus

manufactus designs und develops innovative software solutions to optimize production and logistic processes.

Our goal is to supply software tools to support internal production processes, optimize the supply chain and to

enable the customer to improve the processes continuously. Hereby we strongly support the principles of Lean

Manufacturing, Kanban and the Toyota Production System.

Results and Outlook

Due to its functionality and userfriendliness the software was accepted byoperators and workers withoutreservation.With the help of the e-kanban softwareIKS, Pirelli reached its targets:all Kanban processes becametransparent.

Now that the effectiveness of e-Kanbanhas been proven, it is Pirelli's intention toexpand it to all processes in the plant,which includes some, that havetraditionally been considered unsuitablefor the application of Kanban.

For further improvement of the productionprocesses Pirelli is now developing a"Radio Frequency (RF) Tagging System".This system shall reduce errors that mightoccur when scans are not accomplished.For that purpose each container is fittedwith an electronic tag that causes aconsume signal when being used. Thissignal is transferred to the Kanban Boardand automatically generates an update; sothe containers need not to be scannedany more.