My Japanese colleagues probably reference visual management as often as any other concept and it is easy to see why. Visual management has broad applicability across a company from the CEO down to the individual contributor, and from manufacturing to finance, to IT. You might wonder why I have called this a concept. This is because I do not really consider this a specific tool, it is instead a concept with a very specific set of attributes that are core to high performing operations of any kind. I have also referenced visual management and visual workplace interchangeably here. Some will also draw differences with visual control but this is not the purpose of this post.
First, let’s look at the available definitions. I was surprised to find that many of the lean sites define visual management as 5S. This seems far too narrow. Others were just too vague and used terms like identifying target states and implementing corrective actions. I next checked Pyzdek’s excellent reference, The Six Sigma Handbook, which also contains some Lean references. The index did not contain any reference to visual workplace / management / control. Nor did Michael George’s Lean Six Sigma. Given the degree to which the Six Sigma community claims every concept in existence, this was rather surprising. Not satisfied, I moved on to Wikipedia. Much to my surprise, visual management and visual workplace are not even defined in Wikipedia! There is a brief definition of visual control with a note asking for help to expand the definition. Now that says something. I will have to get started on writing these.
Visual management / visual workplace / visual control are top level concepts which are embodied in many elements of Lean/TPS (kanban, heijunka, poke yoke, and 5S to name just a few). While starting at a very high level concept, there seems to be an entire book full of very specific rules of thumb. The five foot rule is one example (sometimes a slightly different measure is used depending on the prevailing height of the staff). Takao Kasahara once told me about working in Porsche over 30 years ago. When they arrived, there were huge material racks all over the floor. They found some hack saws and went to work cutting them down. The five foot rule is aimed at ensuring that the entire production floor can be seen by everyone.
But what about beyond the factory. There are many great examples of visual workplace elsewhere in the corporation. Have you ever had a system that you use to do your job which requires you to look at three or four separate screens to get information that you need for a decision? This is a great example. A system employing visual management principles would have all of that data in one screen, and probably some higher level status screen which caused someone to look at this data in the first place. When you work in the back office, your information systems are your workplace and they can be visual (but usually are not).
I will start a list of principles which will surely be inadequate. Maybe I can find some collaborators to expand the visual control entry on Wikipedia and also add some cross references from visual management and visual workplace. The current Wikipedia definition of visual control provides a starting point which highlights a few of the important concepts. There are no citations on this entry, so if this has been plagarized from somewhere else, please let me know.
Visual control is a technique employed in many places and contexts whereby control of an activity or process is made easier or more effective by deliberate use of visual signals. These signals can be of many forms, from different coloured clothing for different teams, to focusing measures upon the size of the problem and not the size of the activity, to kanban and heijunka boxes and many other diverse examples. Visual control communicates very effectively the information needed for decision making.
Many companies could go a long way just be focusing everyone on visual workplace principles. More to follow on this one….
Want to read more on visual workplace? Check out my latest post on seeing performance in the factory and the office. Link is here.
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