Since Toyota Production System founder Taiichi Ohno first introduced the system during the 1940s, Kanban has been adopted by thousands of success-hungry companies around the world. Tracking progress is the main purpose of Kanban cards, which helps business teams stay up-to-date with their work and allows them to better determine strategies that both are and are not useful.  

If you’ve decided that your business is going to start using the Kanban system to track your progress, the first decision that you’ll need to make is how you’re going to display the cards. There are several different options to choose from, each of which will enable your team to see the progress status of various projects or even the business progress overall. It’s important to choose a method of displaying Kanban cards that every employee can easily access and use. Here we have gone into some more detail about the different types of Kanban boards and card holders available.

Online Boards:

An online board is a must for any contemporary, web-based workplace looking to use the Kanban method to track progress and improve success rates. Online boards allow employees to use their laptop, tablet or smartphone to visualize and manage their workflow, whilst engaging in real-time communication and collaboration on various projects with fellow team members. There are several applications that can be downloaded to utilize online Kanban systems, whilst others are in the form of websites that can be visited on any connected device. These tend to be a top choice for modern company owners since they provide more efficiency, improve flexibility, and boost communication between team members by providing easy instant messaging options. Employees can use their device to effortlessly change the ways in which they deal with lane and column designation, allowing them to easily adjust cards to fit around their project.

Agile Boards:

The term ‘agile’ was first used in relation to Kanban around two decades ago, in a manifesto put together by a team of seventeen software developers. Agile offers an alternative approach to using Kanban cards that allows teams to break the development process down into smaller and more manageable segments. As a result, it allows for making easier changes as work progresses and minimizes the risk of work being held up, improving both flexibility and interactivity.

Agile work teams are more likely to need a more complex set of options than the basic ‘to do, doing, done’ of traditional Kanban, however, the high adaptability of the system makes it a popular choice with many companies today. Teams can use agile Kanban systems to accept additional changes, visually present highly complex tasks and workflows, and improve the transparency of workplace projects and collaborations. Using this method allows workers to visually track if, how, and where work is being bottlenecked in any lane; this allows them to make better-informed decisions to ensure that the workflow runs smoothly.

Kanban Bin Systems:

In certain workplace settings, two- and three-bin Kanban systems can be used as a useful tool for tracking inventory. Workers, most usually those on a production line or other supply setting, will pull tasks from bin number one and work through them until the tasks are completed. Once the last task is completed, the worker will then flip the card or the bin, depending on the system, and begin working through the tasks in the second bin, during which time the first bin will be replenished. Three-bin Kanban systems leave one bin at the supplier’s location for tracking inventory.

Excel Kanban Boards:

One of the simplest ways to present your Kanban cards is via an Excel spreadsheet. All Microsoft Office users will have access to this software program, but if you do not use Office, you can find online alternatives such as Google Sheets, which work just as well. In addition, creating a Kanban board using Google Sheets allows you to share the document online with others, making it the perfect option for projects where a number of people are working together remotely.

To create a Kanban board in Excel or Sheets, you will first need to name the columns of your sheet to correlate with each work progress stage, e.g. To Do, Doing, Done, plus any additional stages that are relevant to your project. This method of using Kanban is popular since it allows you to retain all the functionality of tracking your project using Excel or Sheets, whilst adopting the Kanban principles for enhanced visibility and flexibility. Alternatively, you can use another popular Microsoft Office software. PowerPoint allows you to create and easily showcase your Kanban cards to staff, clients, or stakeholders.

Wall-Mounted Systems:

Wall-mounted, physical card holders and racks present an old-fashioned and traditional, yet still highly effective method of displaying and using Kanban systems. In physical, hands-on environments where members of staff may not have direct access to a computer throughout the working day, wall-mounted Kanban cards can be a hugely effective way of getting things done.

Wall-mounted cards are popular in material handling environments but can be used in almost any workplace to help with a smoother flow of both progress and communication. Unlike traditional cards which represent capacity and demand on a task, wall-mounted cards tend to utilize items such as magnets, push-pins, and sticky notes to represent each task or work item. As it makes its way around the board, each item correlates to a specific business process, for example, an item that is going through the production process.

Whether you’re looking for a simple method of tracking tasks that are to-do, in progress or completed, or are looking for a more advanced way of keeping on track of business processes and communication, Kanban systems are one of the most popular choices for business productivity around the world. They are one of the most versatile and flexible aids for business process improvement with a large assortment of display options that allows almost any company to adapt them to fit specific needs.