kanban

See also: Kanban

English

From Japanese 看板 (かんばん, kanban), from 看 (kan, “visible”) + 板 (“board or card”), developed and first used in the Toyota Production System.

kanban (countable and uncountable, plural kanbans or kanban)

(countable) A card containing a set of manufacturing specifications and requirements, used to regulate the supply of components. [from 1980s]
- 1986, David J. Lu, transl., edited by Japan Management Association, Kanban Just-in Time at Toyota: Management Begins at the Workplace, CRC Press, →ISBN, page 93:
  The sub-assembly line assembles A. It goes to processing line 1 to withdraw part a, and for this purpose it must take the sub-assembly kanban (called withdrawal kanban). It goes to store a, withdraws boxes in the required quantity and removes those kanban (called in-process kanban or production-ordering kanban) that are attached to the boxes.
A coordinated manufacturing system using such cards.
- 1994, Yasuhiro Monden, Toyota Production System: An Integrated Approach to Just-In-Time, Chapman & Hall, →ISBN, page 51:
  However, since so many Japanese industries have adopted Kanban, this problem is diminishing.
(by extension) A system to manage, visualise, and improve work across teams, often as part of an agile methodology. [from 2000s]
kanban board
- 2014, Joakim Sunden, Marcus Hammarberg, Kanban in Action‎^[1], Manning, →ISBN:
  The first thing that often differentiates a daily standup in a kanban team from other standup meetings is that a kanban team tends to focus on the work on the board rather than on the individual people in the team.

kanban