Executing Kanban

The Kanban process is controlled by setting the Kanbans to the appropriate statuses. In the simplest case, it is sufficient to use the Full and Empty statuses.

If the demand source sets the status to Empty, the system creates a replenishment element, instructing the material supply source to deliver. As already explained, the method of material replenishment depends on the strategy in the control cycle. The replenishment can be carried out via In-house production, external procurement, or stock transfer. For in-house production, production orders or planned orders in repetitive manufacturing are created, external procurement is carried out via purchase orders, and stock transfers can be realized via stock transfer reservations. 

Emptying a Kanban does not lead to a goods movement, especially not to a goods issue regarding the materials consumed in production. The goods issues are backflushed with the confirmations in production or posted manually with reference to individual orders.

There are different ways to set the Kanban status. For example, the status can be set via barcode, in the Kanban board or via RFID technology. 

If the demand source sets the status to Full, the system automatically posts the goods receipt for the delivered material with reference to the procurement element into the Storage Location of the PSA. In the case of replenishment via in-house production, for example, a goods receipt for a production order takes place in the storage location of the production supply area. 

When you use the Kanban procedure, warehouses, or vendors are linked to the production supply areas using control cycles. Production supply areas are assigned to the relevant production storage locations.

Since material staging with Kanban can also be realized with in-house production, pre-assembly and final assembly can, for example, be linked using Kanban.