Visual controls are simple visual cues or signals that tell us the current situation and enable us to make decisions based on facts. Visual Controls are everywhere in our everyday life – we need to make sure we use them in our workplace as well.
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Read the Transcript for this Video
Probably my favourite Lean concept is Visual Control.
Visual controls are things that we humans encounter every day of our lives.
They help us conduct our lives safely and enable us to make decisions about what to do in everyday situations.
What kinds of situations?
Well here’s an example. I am waiting here to cross the road. The “red man” tells me that I need to wait. When the green man appears it is safe to cross. So why don’t we use the same type of logic in our workplaces?
When I walk into most workplaces I see nothing to tell me what is going on, what decisions I need to make and where the problems are.
Yet is really quite simple and costs almost nothing to implement basic visual controls.
Shadow boards are a great example of a visual control by putting tools on a shadow board we can see exactly what is there and what is missing.
Red green tee cards are another great visual control because you can see at a glance whether tasks are up to date.
Visual controls enable us to make simple decisions based on facts. They can greatly simplify life in your workplace.
By reducing wasted time deciding what to do in simple situations they will free up time for you and your team to focus on the things that really matter.
Contact us to find out how to implement visual controls in your workplace.
I’m Tim Mclean and this has been a TXM Lean Minute