E-kanban is used to increase supply chain efficiency at Ensto

Ensto is an international company specializing in the development, manufacture and marketing of electrical systems and supplies for power distribution as well as electrical applications. They are committed to a sustainable approach and strive to become the world leader in green energy distribution. Their products are manufactured in 7 different countries and are environmentally friendly. Established in 1958, the company now has 1600 employees, mainly in Europe and Asia.

After creating a small-scale manual kanban system, the company realized that in order to operate under a drag production process, kanban cards need to be used more widely. Therefore, in 2014, electronic kanban cards were considered to be used to ensure the efficiency and transparency of the supply chain. By the end of 2016, Ensto had a total of 3833 Kanban loops in the company and 23 suppliers associated with the kanban management system.

Stable inventory levels, better control and minimize material shortages

According to Lasse Lehtinen, who is in charge of developing Lean production and supply chains in Ensto, the benefits of drag production and the use of kanban management software are more stable and well-controlled inventories as well as reduced planning and management time. Shortages of production materials are also “reduced to a minimum”.

Fixed quantities of raw materials are arranged in predefined containers, each containing a kanban. Manufacturing stations are supplied with regular material tanks. “In this way, we were able to minimize the conversion time and escape shortages of production materials.”

With KanbanBOX and one-way material flow, Ensto is also able to find the cause more accurately in case of quality problems. This saves a lot of time and investigation costs. A positive experience for vendors

Deploying KanbanBOX with suppliers is very simple and is a positive experience. Lasse emphasized the fact that the vendors were so impressed with the image quality of KanbanBOX that they could easily read Ensto’s inventory.

Increase delivery accuracy, reduce reminders directed to suppliers

According to Lasse, Ensto products made from scissors manufacturing processes (using kanban) have a 3.3% higher delivery accuracy than those produced from non-pulling processes. This is a big difference when the exact delivery level is usually very high.

For the 23 vendors affiliated with KanbanBOX, the number of emails or phone calls reminding delivery was significantly reduced, but the level of reduction was different.

Setup is quick and easy

According to Lasse, both Ensto’s employees and suppliers find setting up KanbanBOX easy. For employees who have no experience in using computers, using KanbanBOX is much easier than the company’s ERP, because “It’s very intuitive and user friendly”.

The already quick setup becomes even faster as the company has more experience with the software. With providers, if all the necessary data is ready before setup, they can take only half a day. Setting up internal KanbanBOX is much faster than setting up the company’s ERP. Thanks to the use of excel files containing the data to upload, “We can add 500 entries in an hour, or even more. Very fast.” In addition, “The barcode function makes use faster and eliminates the possibility of misspelling,” Lasse adds.

Productivity and Quality Office