Kanban
A method to manage and improve work across systems, where work tasks are typically visualized to give participants a view of progress and process. This approach aims to manage work by balancing demands with available capacity.
Origin
Taiichi Ohno, industrial engineer at Toyota, developed kanban in the late 1940s as a lean manufacturing scheduling system. Inspired by American supermarkets restocking only as items sold—observed during his 1956 U.S. visit—Ohno applied this to Toyota's factory floor. Toyota implemented kanban in their main plant machine shop in 1953, expanding company-wide by 1963. From Japanese kan (visual) and ban (card/board), the system uses cards to track production flow, becoming fundamental to the Toyota Production System and Just-in-Time manufacturing.