Supporting Production System Development Through Obeya Concept [Paperback]

The manufacturing industry, as an important part of the European and Swedish economies, faces many challenges with growing global competition. One of the challenges is transformations from a cost-based to a value-based focus. To do so, manufacturing companies need to improve their production and processes; these improvements can be incremental (Kaizen) and radical (Kaikaku). This manuscript was written in 2012, studying Obeya concept as a supporting tool for production system development for incremental and radical changes. Obeya concept origins from Toyota Production System, implies a big meeting space to help development projects by facilitating visualization of data, communication and involvement of for a project team. Four lean manufacturing companies in Sweden have been studied and results show a great opportunity in Obeya's application to improvement innovative production development projects.