Poka-Yoke/Visual Guarantees: Mistake Proofing Fundamentals

• Overview
• Credits

Although people recognize that mistakes can trigger vast levels of waste in any enterprise, what is less clear is the source of those mistakes. The source is missing information – information deficits in the workplace. The solution is making that information highly accessible by imbedding it as deeply into the value field (the point of use) as possible. This is the purpose of workplace visuality. When implemented visually on the attribute level, we call the devices that present mistakes visual guarantees, mistake-proofing or poka-yoke.

Purchase these reference materials and you will learn the true sources of defects and the mistakes that lead to them, see how to minimize or eliminate virtually every form of defect, understand the basic attributes of effective mistake-proofing and how poka-yoke devices work, and see lots of actual poka-yoke solutions. You will also realize why traditional quality control methods are completely ineffective in controlling mistakes; appreciate why the poka-yoke approach is such a powerful technique for driving defects out of any production system, whether a factory, hospital, gas station or your own kitchen; and understand how poka-yoke, visual guarantees, are a part of the visual-information sharing progression. You will understand how poka-yoke devices fit into lean and six-sigma improvement strategies as well as learn the basic skills for developing your own mistake-proofing applications.

Authors

Gwendolyn D. Galsworth, Ph.D., Visual Thinking Inc. and The Visual-Lean® Institute
C. Martin Hinckley, Ph.D., Visual Thinking Inc./Visual-Lean® Institute

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