In any lean approach, one of the main goals is eliminating waste. By “waste,” we mean activities that don’t add real value for the customer.
Poka-yoke reduces waste in many ways. It improves quality, saves time, and can even reduce operator stress.
Poka-yoke means “anti-error” in Japanese. Invented by Shigeo Shingo, an engineer for Toyota, it’s a method whose objective is to prevent errors and defects.
This method is very favorable to the quality improvement process because it’s extremely effective once it has been well assimilated. However, it can also prove very inexpensive.
An example of poka-yoke in our daily lives is the valve in the pump nozzle at the gas station that shuts off to prevent us from overflowing the tank.
