Do you have an 'andon'?

The word andon, translated from Japanese, means a paper lantern, light. This tool is one of many in the Visual Management system, that we briefly named in our earlier post.

When Kevin and I were having the discussion about this post and talking about andon examples, my mind immediately went to travelling. Think of your last airplane travel, now visualise the panel above your seat where you have a few buttons at a finger's touch away. One of them regulates the air flow, another shines a beam of light at you, and finally the third, magic one, alerts the flight attendant that you want attention from him or her. By pressing that magic button you have just pulled an andon cord. You have 'stopped' the flight attendant and signaled them that they need to approach your seat.

Kevin's mind was more focused on food and more specifically on Brazilian steaks. In the US, where Kevin resides, they have a Brazilian steakhouse called Fogo de Ch?o. This steakhouse uses green and red cards at every table where guests can alert the waiters if they want more food. Green obviously means more meat, red signals no more please.

From Brazilian steaks, Kevin's mind moved promptly to Japan - he must have been starving that day :D In a restaurant in Japan they had a bell on the table and a row of numbers behind where the waiters were. They never came to your table unless you pressed the button, and it would alert them to that specific table number.

These are some examples of andon from daily life. Now let's define a bit more properly what andon is.

In the Lean world andon is an alarm, that can come in different shapes and forms. It visually alerts you if something is not right, if something needs attention. What is even more important here is the reaction that should follow when the andon alarm is triggered. An alarm in itself is useless, unless I know where and how to react. So when discussing andon both the visual alarm, as well as the ensuing response need to go hand in hand.

If you think of andon examples in a production context, it can be a traffic light by the production lines, alerting you if the line needs attention.

You can have an andon board visualising how your line is performing, how many items are produced, and quickly alerting you to where there is a stop. A board that anybody anywhere can follow.

The expression pulling the andon cord comes from the thinking of the ability of a process or a person to stop the process in case of an issue so it can get quickly fixed and you don't pass on a defect.

There can be manual and automatic andons. In case of the automatic andon, the machine will stop and issue an alarm to get fixed. In case of the manual andon, someone needs to press an alarm, aka pull the andon cord, which will signal whoever needs to be alerted to come and provide assistance.

How could an andon thinking help you in your own area? Do you already have an andon implemented?

Until next time.

Best,

Kev Shapcott and Ani Movsisyan