Your thinking, “what has Toyota got to do with my airline travel”. It’s not the airplane ride as much as it is the processes the planes use to fly from here to there. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) relies on a crucial component of the Toyota Production System (TSP) to efficiently move airplanes across the U.S. and abroad. It’s called a Kanban. The best way to grasp this concept is by example.
You are a successful business executive preparing for a flight from Boston to California for a number of excruciating sales meetings. Seated comfortably in first class you are franticly making last minute changes to your power point presentation on the previous month’s sales. While you’re doing that the captain and first office are busy receiving their departure Kanban from the FAA. It sounds something like this,
First Officer , “Boston Departure, American 727 Heavy, IFR to Los Angeles, Flight plan on request, We are ready to copy”
Boston departures response, “American 747 Heavy, Boston departure, you are cleared to Los Angeles airport Via radar vectors, Boston VOR, Putnum VOR, then as filed. Climb and maintain 5,500 expect, Flight level 25 thousand 10 minutes after, Squawk 4562, departure frequency 125.350. Call ground point 95 when ready for pushback”
Boston departures response, “American 747 Heavy, Boston departure, you are cleared to Los Angeles airport Via radar vectors, Boston VOR, Putnum VOR, then as filed. Climb and maintain 5,500 expect, Flight level 25 thousand 10 minutes after, Squawk 4562, departure frequency 125.350. Call ground point 95 when ready for pushback”
The above dialog is called a clearance. In it the FAA issues the flight a Kanban. In this instance Squawk 4562 is what I am referring to. This will make a bit more sense when you consider the formal definition of the term Kanban.
Kanban is a Japanese word for signboard or billboard. It is a signal that indicates the rate inventory is being consumed verses the demand for the finished product. Optimizing this match leads to less waste and inventory space. Accomplishment of that goal frees up capital that was earmarked for inventory and materials. Toyota motors corporation has refined the technique to the point where they constantly via for first place in the American car industry. So what has all of this got to do with airplanes?
Picture a number of planes at all the gates (refer to the airport diagram below) at Boston’s Logan Airport. The production goal is to move the planes from the gates to the runways via the taxiways and then through the national airspace all the while adhering to the strictest of timelines. The longer the planes wait the less profitable the aviation industry is as a whole (see end note on economic impact of aviation).
The diagram reveals the complexity of the production process of moving planes on the ground. The arrows in the diagram depict movement of a plane from Terminal E to Runway 33L to prepare for takeoff. Once the plane is given permission to leave the terminal it has to travel along taxiway’s B & C, across runways 4L & 4R, back along taxiway C, across runway 27 then to the departure end of runway 33L were it waits for permission to “take” the runway for takeoff. When you consider the number of planes that want to leave at or around the same time, you can see that the process would be much more difficult without the effective use of some sort of Kanban.
(Portion of production goal depicted by red arrows)
The Kanban in this example, squawk 4562, is an electronic code that the pilot enters into a radio transponder which emits a signal that allows FAA radar observers to follow the planes progress on the ground and in the air. Once the plane becomes airborne the Kanban helps sequence arrivals.
Consider the following diagram which depicts flights throughout the United States. This particular snapshot depicts flights that occurred at noon on 29 August 2001. It is not too hard to imagine more than one airplane arriving at Boston at the same time. Let’s assume for argument’s sake that a 350 passenger jumbo jet is arriving at about
(Obtained from National Air Traffic Controllers Association Website)
the same time a nimble ten passenger corporate jet is approaching. The FAA sees occurrence which is depicted on their radar as unique transponder squawks. An analysis of the transponders reveals the fact that the smaller plane can land on a shorter runway. With this information the FAA can maximize the runway inventory by utilizing runway 33R (see airport diagram above) for the nimble jet and 33L for the jumbo allowing both planes landing simultaneously.
You might be thinking this sort of signal is great for airplanes but of no use in your industry. If you are thinking that then you would be wrong. Remember a Kanban is any signal that helps you reduce inventory by matching it to demand. The diagram below is an example of a simple yet very efficient Kanban. It is a whiteboard with sticky notes attached. Let’s imagine this Kanban is being utilized in an environment that develops medical equipment. Project managers might use columns to designate the stages of development for a new device, the requirement for technicians and professionals to develop the product and the projected demand for the product. In this example the inventory is the human capital needed to develop a new piece of equipment. For the company to maximize money it must allocate human inventory as a production company would allocate raw materials. The white board indicates at a glance the disposition of inventory verses demand. If there are numerous Kanbans associated with a low demand column, managers can redirect resources to where they are better served.
(Reference: (Skarin, 2009) )
To conclude a Kanban or signboard can be a very effective method in matching inventory to demand for that inventory. The thing to remember when developing a Kanban system is it must relate inventory to demand somehow. In our airplane example the FAA observes the transponder Kanbans on radar scopes that plot them relative to the airports, runways, taxiways and gates. When a radar operator sees to many Kanbans forming in a given location as was the case with the 350 passenger jumbo and the nimble corporate jet, he manipulates the process to maximize the inventory. In the jumbo and nimble jet example the FAA directed the planes to parallel runways and allowed them to land simultaneously which maximized the use of runway space available. Kanban can also be as simple as a white board and sticky notes as detailed in our medical development example (See endnotes for other examples). As you can see a Kanban can be very useful no matter what the industry. The requirements are simple. You need some sort of visual signaling device. Once you have determined the signaling device, determine your inventory requirement and list your demand for finished product. Then show the relationship between the two verses the time required to complete the process. Who knows, maybe your mastery of the Kanban system will give you the business advantage you need to withstand the onslaught of competitors in your industry.
References:
Federal Aviation Administration. (n.d.). Flight Information. Retrieved August 2011, from Federal Aviation Administration: http://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/flight_info/
H, K. (2009, November 18). Kanban kick-start example. http://www.crisp.se/kanban/example.
Sabre Inc. (2011, August 29). Flight Explorer - United States. Retrieved August 29, 2011, from NATCA: http://www.natca.org/flight-explorer/united-states.aspx
Toyoda, E. (n.d.). Eiji Toyoda on the Roots of TPS. Art of Lean, Inc., www.ArtofLean.com, pg 1-7.
Endnote:The economic output of civil aviation in 2009 was $1.225 trillion. This amounted to 5.2% of the GDP and contributed 10.9 million jobs to the U.S. economy. (Source: FAA Air Traffic Organization, The Economic Impact of Civil Aviation on the U.S. Economy, December 2009)
