Kanban & Pull Systems: Card Counts, Two-Bin Sizing, Supermarket Levels, Replenishment Lead Times & Levelled Schedules

What you'll build

What you will be able to do

Each lab ends with a concrete result that you build yourself and the checker confirms, cell by cell.

• Size six kanban loops on a fictional assembly line: the units each loop must cover while a card is away, the card count rounded up to whole cards, the cards on the whole board and the units the loops hold when every container is full.
• Compare five container sizes for one fictional part: cards and units in the loop, signals per day, a rule-of-thumb average stock on hand, the daily cost of signals plus holding, and the container size with the lowest cost.
• Size two-bin locations for six consumables in a fictional clinic store room: bin sizes in whole packs, the shelf stock of both bins, refills per month and how many items need a large bin.
• Set Min and Max levels for six parts in a fictional press-shop supermarket, size the flow-rack lanes for the Max, and work out the floor space and the units the supermarket holds when every part is at Max.
• Read a fictional replenishment log of 20 cycles: the average, median and 90th-percentile lead time, how many cycles were later than plan, and how many extra cards the loop needs to cover nine cycles out of ten.
• Recalculate a fictional loop's card count for six months of forecast demand: daily demand per working day, cards needed per month, the cards to add or take out each month and the peak card count.
• Level a fictional line's weekly mix of four models: demand per shift and share of mix, a repeating A-B-A-C-A-B-A-D pattern built with MOD and INDEX, and the trade-off between more batches (more changeovers) and less stock.
• Turn four weeks of a fictional store room's signal log into a loop review: signals and stockouts per item with COUNTIFS, the usage the signals imply, signals per week and a chart that shows which loop needs attention.