How does Balanced Scorecard software enhance organisational growth as a Lean Visual Management system?

October 25, 2024
lean visual management
Every misstep in your manufacturing counts and leads to delays or waste. But how do you know every single detail about the continuously happening things in your manufacturing process? What if your production floor is a black hole of data? A picture is worth a thousand words, and for your issues, Visualisation is the solution.

That's where you need a Lean Visual Management system that reshapes your chaos into an understandable, actionable roadmap. Rather than displaying your operations in giant, colourful whiteboard, the Lean Visual Management ensure where things are headed at the right time.

For connecting the right things in your day-to-day operations, you must take a step further- choosing a Balanced Scorecard software (BSC) for Lean Visual Management. It aligns your Lean efforts with strategic goals and critical KPIs in real-time. BSC drives your shopfloor with efficiency, productivity and profitability. Through this blog, let's understand How Balanced Scorecard software enhances organisational growth as a Lean Visual Management system.

What is Lean Visual Management?

The principles of Lean revolve around the core idea of Continuous improvement and reduction of waste or inefficiencies. The Lean manufacturing process enhances productivity by integrating certain tools and techniques. Visual management tools, one of the vital tools of visual management, aids a better display of shopfloor activities by simplifying the complex information. It makes the data understandable to all team members enhances communication, efficiency and transparency.

Imagine a situation where your workers are on the move and production lines are running, but the output is down, and delivery is delaying. You may feel blindfolded without understanding the cause even though you have enough. The need here is the implementation of appropriate visual management system. If you adopt a Lean Visual Management system here, you can easily understand the visual cues related to the issues, make smarter decisions and guide the team towards the solution.

Visual Management Tools Used in a Lean Manufacturing System

  • Metrics dashboards: Visual display boards like Balanced Scorecard and SQDCP boards are used to measure performance against the operational goals of the business.
  • Visual Process Maps: Helps the employees understand the workflow by diagramming the entire production process.
  • Color-Coding Systems: Quickly identify and classify items, processes, or materials by associating colours with meanings.
  • Kamishibai Boards: Aids structured audit process review processes regularly.
  • 5S Boards: The 5S methodology (Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardise, Sustain) visually labels and organises workspace.
  • Andon Systems: Provide visual alerts that notify teams of real-time issues or abnormalities.
  • Safety Signage and Floor markings: Give instructions about potential hazards, warnings and instructions.

Enter Balanced Scorecard: Lean's Secret Weapon

The Balanced Scorecard software acts as a GPS for a Lean journey. BSC is a visual display board that connects every dot between the strategy and action. It ensures that every team member, from machine operators to managers, has knowledge about how their labour contributes to the bigger picture. For this, the BSC use its unique features, including real-time data monitoring and dashboards. The strategic framework of Balanced Scorecard aligns the four strategic areas, which are Financial, Customer, Internal Process and Learning and Growth (FCIL) and guides towards success.

The Synergy Between Lean Visual Management and the Balanced Scorecard

Lean Visual Management and the Balanced Scorecard are a perfect synergy for driving performance and streamlining operations. Balanced Scorecard tracks Key Performance Indicators such as Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), Cycle Time, Downtime, Throughput, Scrap Rate, Return on Investment (ROI), Yields, etc., which affect production.

In addition, it drives Continuous improvement by visual management boards such as SQCDP (Safety, Quality, Cost, Delivery, and People), SQDCM (Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost, and Morale), SQDCL (Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost and Lean), SQDCPS (Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost, People and Site Action), ESQDCP (Environment, Sales, Quality, Delivery, Cost and People), FCIL, etc.

These boards assist the workforce in monitoring, collaborating and using the information to develop comprehensive insights.

What does Balanced Scorecard do as a Lean Visual Management system?

  • Give helicopter view of operations
  • Visualise Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
  • Provide instant insights
  • Use colour-coded charts, scorecards or dashboards for better understanding
  • Identify bottlenecks
  • Reduce waste
  • Give real-time data and changes
  • Give alerts for what need attention

Benefits of implementing Balanced Scorecard in Lean operations

  • Increased productivity
  • Improved transparency
  • Enhanced efficiency
  • Reduction in errors
  • Empowering employees
  • Quick Problem Identification and Resolution

Now it's clear that, organisations might face challenges in their visual management without the use of potential tools like Balanced Scorecard. Let's identify what are they.

Challenges in Lean Manufacturing without a Balanced Scorecard Software

  • Lack of Centralised Visibility: Inadequate visibility will result in increased wastes, delays in addressing bottlenecks and lowering overall process
  • Data Silos: Without proper management, information will scatter around different departments leading to fragmented insights and missed opportunities for progress.
  • Inconsistent performance tracking: Challenges in monitoring real-time processes lower Lean improvements like reducing defects and minimising cycle time.
  • Delayed Feedback loops: Without real-time data, teams cannot resolve issues immediately. This will lead to slower response time and lower productivity.
  • Inefficient communication Goals: Strategy and operation will be misaligned with inadequate communication and KPI tracking due to lack of visual clarity.
  • Difficulty in Aligning Strategy with Operations: Organisation face failure to meet strategic objectives without setting objectives through Balanced Scorecard.

Investing in Balanced Scorecard Software for Lean Manufacturing

Rather than a technological upgrade, adopting the Digital Balanced Scorecard in your business is a strategic move that magnifies the Lean Visual Management, ensures real-time visibility and aligns operational activities across the organisation. A Balanced Scorecard is a significant visual management board that develops a continuous improvement culture in an organisation, which is the key concept of Lean management. BSC, as an effective tool based on Lean principles, promotes collaboration, transparency and communication within organisations, resulting in better-streamlined operations. The visual boards of BSC pave the way for more effective, efficient, automated and accurate internal operations by bridging the gap between strategy and execution.

FAQs

1.What is Lean Balanced Scorecard?
A Lean Balanced Scorecard (BSc) drives continuous improvement and reduce waste by aligning day to business operations with overall organisational strategy.

2.What is visual management in Lean?
Visual management has a core value in Lean concept which is the representation of operational information on visual boards for easy identification. These visual cues help the organisations to make data-driven decisions.

3.What are the types of visual management boards?
Continuous Improvement Boards, 5S Boards, Kamishibai boards, Performance Boards, SQDIP Boards, Kanban Boards, etc.

4.What is a Balanced Scorecard software?
Balanced Scorecard software is the digital version of traditional Balanced Scorecards, which track and organise performance metrics and strategy management to attain future goals.

5.What is visual manufacturing?
VISUAL Manufacturing ERP is a cutting-edge feature that will give you more control over your company's manufacturing and other operations through advanced visual tools.

Start your Lean manufacturing journey with Data Point Balanced Scorecard!