page_title: Setsuban Kanri
section_title: Basic principles
hierarchical_section_title: Setsuban Kanri / Basic principles
caption_attribution_description: Italiano: Esempio di controllo di avanzamento in un reparto di montaggio
context_page_description: Setsuban Kanri is the name of a production management methodology for make-to-order business companies. More specifically, it indicates a "management system by synchronized process blocks" which had been originally set and implemented as a management model for the control of the manufacturing progress with makers whose products were very much tailored upon the requests of their customers. It is specific to organizations where the production model is one of the following: DTO, ETO, ATO or MTO.
context_section_description: The basic principles of the Setsuban Kanri are:
  1. Awareness of both the "axes" (nijiku kanri 二軸管理) to be managed.
  Make-order productions need a continuous monitoring to grant for integration and fair balance in-between the following:
  a. the X axis represents the  made-to-order flow, where attention must be paid to quality, cost, time, and customer satisfaction issues per each order, throughout all work phases - from the order receipt to the delivery to customer.
  b. the Y axis represents the department/function where attention should be paid in managing the load/capacity, know-how and priorities to complete all the orders which go through a single dept./function.
  The targets for every order can be achieved only by managing at the same time both axes according to a production plan which allows the various production flows get synchronized one another. Actually, the current Project Management practices generally result too unbalanced on the X axis; the normal practices of production management, on the contrary, tend to focus almost exclusively to the governance of the Y axis.
  2.  Synchronization.
  It is like what happens with the Japanese railway system: the on time arrival of trains is not granted by forcing a check on each single train on the run. Instead, it is the result of careful synchronization of the entry and departure of all the trains from/to each railway station. Each train is considered with reference to the train running before and the one to follow. That is to say that the sequence can be effectively managed only by synchronizing the entire system and verifying the consistency among the drawings release plan, the supply plan and the production plan.
  3. Backward planning starting from point zero.
  Every single order must be planned backwards starting prom a point zero (the point after which it is no longer necessary to have processes monitored because there is a minimum risk of jamming). Choosing a reference time unit called Setsuban (can be days, weeks, decades or months), a number of time units are accounted for in the calendar and the duration of each stage in the working flow is fixed accordingly, and referred to by using delivery indicators called teban (see below).
  4.  The fourfold multilevel planning.
  The planning system consists of 4 levels:
  a. Level 0 or portfolio planning: all orders to all departments/functions
  b. Level 1 or make-to-order planning: each order through all departments
  c. Level 2 or department planning: all the orders with each department/function
  d. Level 3 or block planning:  plan by block, that is a set of activities related to every single order being realized inside a single department/function.
caption: Production Control Board at a machine tool assembly plant
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