Andon is a visual management method and part of the Toyota Production System. In Japanese, the term “Andon” means (paper) lamp. With classic traffic lights and monitors (“boards”) in production, the Andon method forms a visual control system for the production status.
Image: Example of an Andon board
The Andon method encompasses both the visualization of the status of a machine or process and the ability for employees to change this status.
The original form of Andon can now be found in many places, even outside of production. They are ubiquitous not only on machines in manufacturing, but also on self-service checkouts and deposit machines: simple stacked traffic lights with the colors red, yellow, and green that clearly indicate the current status.
Warnings, errors, and malfunctions can be viewed remotely by staff, and the location of the malfunction is immediately clear. The self-explanatory color coding also clearly indicates the problem category as reaching a warning or intervention limit.
In addition to the ubiquitous traffic light lamps, other forms of the Andon method have also been developed. Today, there are Andon boards, which can range from simple counters to elaborate dashboards, and various devices for workers to report status, known as Andon cords.
The Andon board is a visual control device used in manufacturing. In its simplest form, it can display only the current number of units or the status of the line. More advanced versions display any status information about the respective production line or manufacturing process. As part of the Selfbits Manufacturing Suite, our customers use the display for OEE, current production progress, and current production figures and quality data.
The data for the display is collected automatically via machine data collection or manually by employees via production data collection and aggregated and displayed in near real time.
