Today we are
starting a new section in this blog that I have wittily named “logistionary”.
As I couldn’t find a decent way to link Supply Chain and Dictionary
(supplychainary didn’t really sound great to me to be honest) I came up with
logistics + dictionary which has by far a more harmonious sound!
To the
point; every fortnight, as you could have imagined, I will try to present a
term or a concept related to supply chain. You might know some of these terms
but I’m certain you won’t know all of them. Terms like Kanban, Hoshin, Kaizen,
Heijunka and many others will be defined and explained.
To open this
new section, I’m please to introduce you to the concept of Poka-yoke.
Poka-yoke is a Japanese term that means "mistake-proofing"
and it was adopted and introduced as part of the Toyota Production System.
Poka-yoke is any mechanism, either visual or physical,
that helps an equipment operator avoiding mistakes. Its objective is to
prevent, warn or correct possible human errors when operating the piece of
equipment by eliminating product defects.
The focus is on:
-
Make harder to create the error
-
Make possible to reverse the error
-
Make obvious that the error has occurred
The aim of Poka-yoke is to design products and process so
that mistakes can be detected and corrected immediately, eliminating defects at
the source.
Zero defects is an important term firstly because it
drives customer satisfaction and consequently customer loyalty what will result
in more sales and secondly because by eliminating defects we are reducing
costs.
In the two videos below you can find several examples of
Poka-yoke. The second video will also show you the difference between soft and
hard Poka-yoke, and will give you an idea of how Poka-yoke applies to appliances
we use every day.
Keep an eye
on the blog for our next term!
