Supporting production system development through Obeya concept

The manufacturing industry, as an important part of the European and Swedish economies, faces many challenges with growing global competition. One of the challenges is transformations from a cost-based to a value-based focus. To do so, manufacturing companies need to improve their production and processes; these improvements can be incremental (Kaizen) and radical (Kaikaku). This manuscript was written in 2012, studying Obeya concept as a supporting tool for production system development for incremental and radical changes. Obeya concept origins from Toyota Production System, implies a big meeting space to help development projects by facilitating visualization of data, communication and involvement of for a project team. Four lean manufacturing companies in Sweden have been studied and results show a great opportunity in Obeyas application to improvement innovative production development projects.