Torchbox is an independently owned web-design and development company based in Oxfordshire. It provides high-quality, cost effective and ethical solutions for its clients. And although it is a company that relies on its staff s creative capabilities, this does not mean that lean techniques have no place in its operations. On the contrary, it makes full use of the kanban approach to controlling its work as it progresses through the web-design process. We know that kanban control originated from car manufacturers like Toyota, but our development teams can also benefit from its basic principles, says Edward Kay, the Head of Production at Torchbox. It is a way of scheduling work based on what needs to be produced and what resources are available to produce it with. At Torchbox we use a large magnetic whiteboard (called the "kanban board") to track completed features through each stage of the design process; from discovery through development, design, demo, deployment and on to the finish of the design (called the done stage). Each feature has its own paper slip which physically moves across the board, held in place with a magnet. You cant have more features in progress than the number of magnets you have to hold them in place, so the principle is enforced with a physical limitation. When one feature enters the done column, another one can be pulled through into discovery. Theres a pulling process, where completing work allows you to start on something new. At the start of every day, the team has a stand-up meeting at the kanban board where each member quickly runs through what they did the day before, and what theyll do in the coming day. Each developer has a few tokens which they place on the features theyre working on. This helps link up the big picture of how a designs features are developing, with the little picture of what each developer is working on each day, and helps teams to make sure that all work being done is being tracked across the board. One of the big benefits of using kanban, says Edward Kay, is that because were visualizing the steps a feature goes through to be completed, were able to see where the bottlenecks are that work gets held up on. 1- 1-

1-Briefly discuss the difference between push and pull production systems.

2- Visually describe how Trochbo use Kanban in their design phase.

3- Discuss another example of how Kanban can be used in no-manufacturing setting.