Continuous Flow

Movement of products or information through successive process steps with minimal waiting, batching or interruption.

Examples

01Continuous flow in the new cell moves each pump from machining to assembly to testing one by one, without batches in between.
02Walking the gemba shows whether continuous flow is real or whether small piles of parts are building up between stations.
03Moving to continuous flow cuts lead time from 5 days to 4 hours, while WIP falls from 300 pumps to 12.