Visual Control is using display boards to provide information about the process, who’s involved, what happens, and what the results are against a target. Anybody should be able to walk up to the visual board and quickly work out the work being done and the status. Visual Control boards can also be used as a basis for daily stand up meetings (known as Huddles).
Visual boards should be owned and used by the team not just the managers or team leaders. The concept is that good performance correlates with good communication within a team. A display board should provide at-a-glance information as near real-time as possible – it shouldn’t for example just display the last months results.
Visual Control will help to smooth out and speed up the flow of work in a team and enable faster decisions, fixing issues, and capturing of ideas for improvement.
Visual boards can take many forms but a good guide to whether they work is are they being used daily! These are two examples from a systems and safety environment.
When displayed information is required in multiple locations (cross functions/multi sites) it gets harder to update and control the information manually. Electronic display boards provide a solution. The following examples are by www.kainexus.com who are specialists in electronic visual management.
