Design and Implementation of Flow Dashboard for Production Planning and Control
Viertamo, Tuomas (2023-05-02)
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2023050240386
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi-fe2023050240386
Tiivistelmä
Visual management tools of which some have existed for dozens of years are still an important aspect of increasing the performance of production operations. Visual management tools such as dashboards are a vital part of lean production principles which emphasize concepts such as production flow, minimizing waste and maximizing the customer value. Visual management tools provide the factory with tools to increase the efficiency and output of the whole factory. Visual management tools are increasingly becoming more digital and are able to combine many million rows of data from different data sources into one single dashboard to bring better insights for all stakeholders of the value chain.
The purpose of this thesis was to design and implement a flow dashboard to improve case com-pany’s operations and production planning & control function. There was a demand to improve the visibility and increase the transparency in the production operations between the functions in a new factory building. The new factory was still partially in a ramp-up phase thus it was still missing many of the performance and visual management tools.
The thesis utilized design science research methodology which aims to design and develop solu-tions to real world business problems. At first the problem was studied and requirements to solve the problem were formed based on discussions with the stakeholder groups. Once the requirements were known an iterative development process followed, where a first a prototype dashboard was developed. As the first prototype was ready feedback for further development iteration was requested from the stakeholder groups for total of three development iterations. Once the final version of the dashboard was ready it was demonstrated for the user groups and set on a display at the factory floor.
The first research question related to the requirements of the identified user groups. The re-quirement concepts emphasized by the user groups were the importance of understanding the production priorities, targets, performance, and production flow metrics. The second research question provided insights on how the dashboard improved production planning and control of the factory. The key benefits included that the current level of work-in-progress and production lead time trends were able to be visualized, providing a useful tool to track and improve the production flow. Third research question focused on how the dashboard improved efficiency of the production operations. The benefits included a new model for visualizing priorities and vis-ualisation of production performance and targets which help the shop floor workers and pro-duction management alike.
The purpose of this thesis was to design and implement a flow dashboard to improve case com-pany’s operations and production planning & control function. There was a demand to improve the visibility and increase the transparency in the production operations between the functions in a new factory building. The new factory was still partially in a ramp-up phase thus it was still missing many of the performance and visual management tools.
The thesis utilized design science research methodology which aims to design and develop solu-tions to real world business problems. At first the problem was studied and requirements to solve the problem were formed based on discussions with the stakeholder groups. Once the requirements were known an iterative development process followed, where a first a prototype dashboard was developed. As the first prototype was ready feedback for further development iteration was requested from the stakeholder groups for total of three development iterations. Once the final version of the dashboard was ready it was demonstrated for the user groups and set on a display at the factory floor.
The first research question related to the requirements of the identified user groups. The re-quirement concepts emphasized by the user groups were the importance of understanding the production priorities, targets, performance, and production flow metrics. The second research question provided insights on how the dashboard improved production planning and control of the factory. The key benefits included that the current level of work-in-progress and production lead time trends were able to be visualized, providing a useful tool to track and improve the production flow. Third research question focused on how the dashboard improved efficiency of the production operations. The benefits included a new model for visualizing priorities and vis-ualisation of production performance and targets which help the shop floor workers and pro-duction management alike.