Electronic Kanban vs Traditional Kanban: the Benefits

Therefore, when a card goes from the product to the board, it can indicate that such material is

• to be produced, in order to sell it;
• to be purchased, because it is about to run out;
• to be moved, for example to bring it closer to the production or assembly lines.

In a kanban system, physicality is the strong point, because moving the cards and seeing them populate the kanban board allows you to always keep track of stock and avoid stock breaks. In addition, in the long run this method makes it possible to level out stocks and production, ensuring a constant pace and limiting production peaks.

Another very important lean aspect of this system is that the operators are directly responsible for moving the cards. The task of reporting what to restore or what to produce is in their hands and no longer exclusively in the hands of offices and managers. This increases everyone’s engagement, as well as enhancing the autonomy of the company’s employees.

Indeed, the kanban method is a real philosophy. An approach that is not limited to the use of a tool, but also affects and transforms the human aspect of the company.

So why choose to buy e-kanban software if you can have all these benefits with a board and a handful of cards?

The electronic kanban software is a software that follows the logic of the manual kanban, facilitating the replenishment of material by enhancing them through the electronic management of information and restore signals.

Advantages of E-kanban

An e-kanban software brings with it all the advantages of manual kanban, increasing them, precisely because a software can process much more information than any human.

In an e-kanban software, the kanban cards are both printed and digitized. This means that each paper card, applied to the box, is matched by a digital one. It is the latter that is “managed in the digital kanban board.” This way, you avoid the displacement of the physical card, which can be thrown away as soon as the corresponding material has been used. By scanning the barcode of the card, its digital alter ego will update.

On some e-kanban software, such as KanbanBOX, the board can be shared with all suppliers for free. In this way, information is shared in real time. This eliminates the need to send orders through other software, e-mail, or phone calls.

Moreover, the software suggests how to size the kanban (add or remove components from the box) as needed. It can do this because it constantly analyzes consumption trends. This analysis also makes it possible to obtain dashboards with KPIs and metrics to evaluate your own consumption, your relationship with suppliers, and start from there to adjust your strategy.

Electronic kanban is valuable in situations of high complexity. However, it can also be successfully implemented in smaller companies, or those with few codes to manage. A gradual adoption is often recommended anyway, to allow your team to become familiar with the tool.

If you were wondering where the kanban framework comes from, it originated in Toyota and has spread more to manufacturing companies. However, it can be applied in any field. The key thing is that you need to manage components whose frequency of consumption is high.

For example, a kanban system would also be usable to manage personal shopping! It would show us what to buy at the supermarket, without the risk of taking too much because we were convinced by the discount or forgetting something because we were in a hurry.

Choosing to use software is a natural step as volumes increase as we saw in the previous paragraphs. Perhaps for grocery shopping we will never really need it, but in a company that works with external suppliers it becomes a must.

E-kanban in the Healthcare industry

One area where the electronic kanban system is still uncommon but where there is much potential is the health care sector. We got this feedback by collaborating with the Oscar Lambret Center, which has implemented KanbanBOX to optimize the replenishment of emergency drugs and medical devices from the central internal warehouse to the various wards.