Andon in Manufacturing

Contributed By

Guntapudi Udayravichandra

Visual controls are the major part in any stream of business. May be Production, Road transport, Railway stations and in home appliances. Andon is a visual management tool used in lean manufacturing to communicate the status of production to the operators or the production team. The status can be Break down, Material Shortage, Quality issue, Behind production target or an error.

This lean tool, Andon, uses colored lights or signals to communicate to the team. This system uses different color codes which have defined actions or meanings. We will be discussing this further in this article. Some times audible alarms or sounds are clubbed with this visual system to make it more effective.

In Production : Andon is one of the key factors in Visual management. Andon can visualize the exact problem, which is happening in line, anywhere in the production.

It helps the person who operates the Machine/Quality/Maintenance identify the problem instantly and stop (or act) the machine or process to make less rejected pieces to control at the time of production. A person can raise the alarm by indicating what exact issue he is facing by raising his color on which the issue is going on. It is the one of the integral part of Jidoka.

Few FACTS on Andon:

• Andon can be manual and automatic.
• It should be a proper designated color for designated problem or issues in lines. There are some basic colors to indicate the situation in the lines. Most of the colors are standard in most of production factories.

Manual Andon

Manual Andon is used by operators. When the operation or process gets any deviation, operator need to raise hand with color coding flag, which is in picture to let concern person know about the situation.

Following are the general color codes used as part of manual Andon. Please refer the below indication of each color code.

1. Blue Color : Indicates the material shortage.
2. Red Color : Red light indicate quality issues.
3. Yellow Color : Indicates the error in the functioning of the machine.

You can add any color codes according to your process or situation. The purpose of this Andon is to communicate the situation as soon as possible to the concerned team or person.

The lights and sound used in airplanes to call the flight attendants are the advanced versions of this manual Andon.

The above picture represents a manual Andon. An operator will be having color coded flag or displays, in this picture, its picture of hand with different color. The operator selects the respective display and raise with his hands, according to the situation.

Automatic Andon

For ease of understanding let’s consider a Quality checking station. And suppose this station is checking RFT (Right at First Time).

And now, here is the color code for the QC station.

1. Red Color: Low RFT (Below 80%)
2. Green Color: Meeting RFT (Above 95%)
3. Yellow Color: In control (80%-95%)

Here what happens is if the RFT is above 95%, everything is ok, a green light will be displayed automatically. And, if its below 80%, red light will be displayed automatically.

And the supervisor or concerned team can look in to the problem, if any.

What is the difference from Manual?

Here the lights will be displayed automatically, which means no one need to raise a flag as done in manual. This is achieved my software and hardware integration.

The above picture shows automatic color code displays, which is used in automatic Andon.

Changeover Flag

This is an another example of Andon.

Changeover flag to Assembly line/Production line to indicate Changeover happening in Line. This can be visualized at the start of the line, to let everyone know on Changeover in lines.

How to Implement Andon

• Plan: Need to have proper data where to implement and how to implement.
• Color Definition: Need to set up color system for each problem. (Quality/Production/Maintenance/based on industry)
• Installation: Need to install proposed system to proposed places.
• Train: Train the operators who will be using that Andon.
• Monitor: Regularly Monitor the system for its effectiveness.

Uses of Andon

• Can identify the problem from bottom level of production.
• Can minimize the defect rates and waste
• Increase the productivity and Efficiency of Production.

Andon can only be successful when the system is in place and all are accountable for their roles. If system does not act well Andon is waste of use. If it is used properly, it will be a one of the valuable tool , which adds value to the production.

Guntapudi Udayravichandra @guntapudi

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