There are likely many times you’ve encountered problems that arose from something being unclear. Communication is key, as the saying goes. That’s where visual management comes in.

When you need to know what to produce, how much of it to produce, and what order to produce it in, you have a couple ways to approach the problem. You can push through orders and create piles of inventory, or you can pull orders continuously to keep your production flowing smoothly.

Ideally, your production process would achieve single piece flow and there would be no need for managing the process with a system for tracking what is where, and how much is needed. But because we don’t live in a perfect world, you will have to choose a system for managing your production process.