Continuous Flow is the objective of Lean Manufacturing - to have materials flowing constantly through the factory to meet customer demand, with very little in the way of in-process inventories and WIP stores.

What is Continuous Flow? Continuous Flow is usually used to refer to the design of One Piece Flow cells, following the principles of the Kaizen Blitz, introduced into the West in the 1980's by Mr Iwata and his team of ex-Toyota supplier development engineers. The basic tools are Standard Work Combination Sheets and Process Capacity Tables, used to design to Takt time - the rhythm of demand - and to flex volume using alternative manning scenarios in the cell. Cells are linked by Kanban to give a flow throught the whole production process.

As the original translators of Mr Iwata's work, Productivity Europe can teach you how to design One Piece Flow cells according to Toyota principles, and help your staff implement and trouble shoot your cell designs.

Our Foundations of Lean Workshop

For an overview of the process, we run a Foundations of Lean Public Workshop . For more details, download our Foundations of Lean public workshop brochure , which introduces participants to the basic theory and practice, using video case studies.