kanban

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See also: Kanban

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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

Pronunciation

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Noun

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kanban (countable and uncountable, plural kanbans or kanban)

  1. (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.
  2. 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.
  3. (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.

Derived terms

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See also

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Further reading

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Japanese

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Romanization

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kanban

  1. Rōmaji transcription of かんばん