Lean Corner

How to implement a visual management board

What is a visual management board?
How to implement good visual management?

Among the multitude of lean management tools, visual management solutions are probably among the most popular, due to their ease of understanding and almost playful aspect. Today, they are at the heart of industrial environments and form an integral part of communication within an organization.
However, implementing a visual management solution requires certain key stages to be respected, to ensure that the tool meets the expectations of the various users and brings real added value to the company. In this article, we will review all the points to watch out for to guarantee the successful implementation of a visual management solution.

What is a visual management board?

Key principles and tools used

The origins of visual management date back to the early 1980s. Its principle is relatively simple on paper: to use visual stimuli to improve the performance of different processes within an organization, and to enable important information to be communicated quickly and effectively.
The tools used can be very diverse, ranging from simple whiteboards to digital tools increasingly appearing in industrial environments. Here are a few concrete examples:

Mind Mapping
Andon panels
Heijunka board
Poka-Yoke
Pareto diagrams
Digital dashboards (often interfaced directly with ERP or MES systems)

Why use visual management?

There are many advantages to using visual management, but here are some of the main ones:

Improved and easier communication at all levels of an organization.
Airbus uses digital dashboards (such as iObeya) to display production updates in real-time, enabling fluid communication between engineering and assembly teams.
Enhanced collaboration between teams: visual management encourages the participation of all players in an industrial environment
Heijunka boards are used in electronic component manufacturing plants to visualize and balance workloads, encouraging inter-team collaboration to adjust production rates.
Real-time performance monitoring and increased reactivity.
Volvo, in its efforts to improve the performance of its production lines, uses visual management to monitor the efficiency of its assembly lines in real-time.
Clear, explicit understanding of information thanks to effective visual stimuli
Hospitals use dashboards to monitor key performance indicators such as patient waiting times and bed occupancy rates, improving resource management and quality of care.

The benefits are even more obvious in an industrial environment where a multitude of different players work simultaneously, as it enables information to be transmitted clearly and efficiently, making it accessible to all and allowing everyone to contribute.

How to implement good visual management?

Build the right project team

Selecting the people to be involved in setting up a visual management system at an early stage ensures that the project runs smoothly. As the aim of these tools is very often to ensure communication between users from different hierarchical levels, it is good practice to involve all those who will use the solution in its design.

It’s also important to define how the tool will be managed. Who will be responsible for updating the information? How will this visual management system be managed? Will users consult the information autonomously, or during regularly scheduled dedicated sessions?

The most important thing is to make sure that everyone’s roles have been properly defined, while bearing in mind that a visual management tool is a living tool, which usage methods may be adjusted after several weeks or months of use, with the main objective always being to facilitate communication and the transmission of information.

Determine the framework and define precise operational requirements

Before implementing a visual management tool in an organization, it is essential to ensure that the framework for the integration of the tool has been properly defined and analyzed. One of the first elements to consider is the organizational and industrial context, so here are the main elements to watch out for:

Existing processes
Existing modes of communication
Hierarchical levels involved

Next, we need to consider the constraints linked to physical and digital infrastructures, so that visual management fits in as well as possible with the environment.
For example, a touch-sensitive digital panel would not be suitable for a production environment where operators must wear protective gloves.
Once the framework has been properly defined, the next step is to determine the operational needs to be met by visual management:

What difficulties have led the organization to consider implementing visual management?
What gains are sought? What problems need to be resolved
What performance indicators (KPIs)/graphical indicators can be used to achieve the objectives?
Who are these indicators intended for? Where should they be displayed?

The answers to these questions will help clarify the need and determine which tool is best suited to solving the initial problem.

Select and design the right tools

Once your needs have been correctly identified, it’s time to choose the right tool(s) and design them accordingly. As we saw earlier, there are a multitude of visual management systems, each responding to specific issues and adapting well to certain business contexts.
To choose the right tool, several parameters need to be considered, such as the nature of the information to be communicated, the people targeted by the tool, the environment in which it will be implemented, and how often the information needs to be updated.

Since the primary aim of a visual management solution is to convey information easily and effectively, parameters such as ergonomics, legibility, modularity, and ease of use are key elements to consider when choosing a tool.

The design and structure of the tool itself will also be at the heart of a successful implementation, as these tools are extremely customizable. The hierarchy of information, by specific colors or symbols, or the organization of information and indicators, will determine the success of a visual management tool.

Here’s a list of 10 examples of visual management examples tools and their use cases from which you can draw inspiration:

Kanban boards : Visual monitoring of workflows.
Andon signs: Signaling problems on production lines.
Digital dashboards : Visualize key indicators in real-time.
Mind Maps: Visual organization of ideas and concepts.
Pareto diagrams : Identification of the most frequent causes of problems.
Poka-Yoke: Error prevention mechanisms.
Gantt charts : Tracking project phases and deadlines.
Organization charts: Representation of organizational structures.
SQCDP : Monitoring key production KPIs.

Ensure integration and adoption within the organization

As with any continuous improvement or lean management project, the successful implementation of a visual management solution depends on several criteria. So how do you get your team to adopt visual management?
Resistance to change is obviously something that many manufacturers dread, but several good practices can help reduce its impact. As mentioned in the previous paragraph, it’s essential to involve all stakeholders in the project from the outset, so that all players participate in the development and design of the solution. The earlier users are involved in the design process, the greater the chances of adoption.
Training and support for users in the early stages following deployment of the tool are also essential. Identifying referents among the various professions concerned also helps to ensure that knowledge is passed on to users, as well as giving teams a sense of responsibility.
The tool must be integrated into the organization’s processes, as well as into users’ daily or weekly routines. This is how the use of the solution will become systematic and will then become an indispensable part of the company.

Measure the tool's effectiveness

The effectiveness of the tool can be measured by analyzing various indicators. For a digital management tool, for example, it’s easy to monitor the number of consultations or the frequency of use of the solution. This provides a direct measure of the tool’s adoption by users.
We can also measure the more global impact of the solution, by analyzing productivity or performance indicators, and comparing them with the figures recorded before the implementation of visual management to quantify its impact.
In the long term, to guarantee the tool’s effectiveness, it is essential to collect feedback and impressions from users, to understand where improvements can be made, and to ensure that the tool contributes fully to increasing performance at all levels.

It’s easy to see why visual management a key element of corporate communication is now. Thanks to simple visual indicators, it guarantees rapid and efficient transmission of information, enabling rapid reaction when necessary.
However, the successful implementation of a visual management tool depends on several key factors, such as a clear understanding of your needs and environment, the selection of the appropriate tool, and the integration of all relevant teams in the development and deployment of the solution.
You now have all the keys you need to successfully integrate your visual management tool!

Lean Corner