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 Releasing Kanban Containers Locate this document in the navigation structure

Purpose

This process facilitates the controlled release of kanban containers after the adjustment of a control cycle.

If the number of kanban containers is increased, you must note that the new containers may not physically exist, may not exist at all, or may not yet have been labeled. In addition, kanban cards must be printed before the containers can be released to production.

Process Flow

  1. In the first step, you must make the basic decision as to how the system is to proceed if the number of kanban containers in a control cycle needs to be increased.

    • Whether these kanban containers are to be available at once

    • Whether the containers are initially to be locked

      Locking the kanban containers affords the advantage that there is then enough time to label the new containers and print the kanban cards.

      You can define how the system is to proceed in Lock New Kanbans field in the Customizing activity Define Strategies for Adopting Calculation Proposals . See: Locking New Kanban Containers

  2. You carry out an automatic kanban calculation and adopt the number of containers needed thus determined or you increase the number of containers manually in control cycle maintenance.

  3. After having prepared the containers, in the last step you must unlock the locked kanban containers. The following options are available for doing this:

    • You can unlock the locked kanban containers using the transaction Unlock Kanban Containers (PK09).

    • You can have the locked kanban containers unlocked automatically by the system after the kanban cards have been printed. The system unlocks the containers automatically if you have selected the Unlock Kanbans Automatically After Printout checkbox. You will find the checkbox on the initial screen of the Collective Kanban Print transaction (PK17) or in the print function in control cycle maintenance.

    • You can also unlock the kanban containers manually in control cycle maintenance (PKMC) by unsetting the locking indicator .