What is visual management?
Visual management makes the state of a process visible to everyone, instantly, without asking or opening a report: is the area on target today, what is abnormal, and what is being done about it? It covers floor markings and shadow boards (5S), andon lights, kanban signals and, at its centre, the team's performance board. The aim is not decoration: a visual system should make problems obvious early enough to act on them the same day.
The SQDCP board
| Letter | Category | Typical daily metric |
|---|---|---|
| S | Safety | Incidents, first-aid cases, near misses reported |
| Q | Quality | First-pass yield, defects, customer complaints |
| D | Delivery | On-time delivery, output against plan, schedule adherence |
| C | Cost | Scrap cost, overtime hours, OEE |
| P | People | Attendance, training completed, suggestions made |
Running the daily meeting at the board
- Same time, same place, standing, 10–15 minutes.
- Review yesterday letter by letter: green or red, and for red, why.
- Raise problems and agree an owner and date for each action; escalate what the team cannot solve.
- Review open actions from previous days.
- Look ahead: today's plan, staffing, risks.
Board example
The example is a tier 1 board for an assembly line in October. Safety is green every day except day 14, when a first-aid case at the conveyor transfer led to a guarding action. Quality misses its 97% first-pass yield three times, all on days with O-ring material from one supplier: the pattern on the Q is what prompted the action to check that lot. Cost is red on three days of high press scrap. Weekends are grey. In two seconds anyone walking past can see that Delivery and People are healthy and where the team is focusing.
For recurring red days, dig deeper with a Pareto chart or 5 Whys, and check the board on your gemba walk.
How to use this Visual Management Board tool
- Set up the board. Name the board and choose the month. The letters adjust to the number of days.
- Choose the metrics. Click under each letter to set the daily metric, its target and whether lower or higher is better.
- Record each day. At the daily meeting, click the day under each letter and enter yesterday's value. It turns green or red automatically.
- Mark non-working days. Set weekends and shutdowns to "not a working day" so they do not count.
- Raise actions. For every red day, write the problem and the action agreed, with an owner and a due date.
- Review and export. Export the board to PDF or PNG for the tier 2 meeting or the monthly review, or the values to Excel.
Frequently asked questions
What is a visual management board?
A visual management board shows how an area is performing at a glance, usually with simple green/red indicators against targets, and the problems and actions being worked on. It is the centre of the daily team meeting (tier meeting): the team reviews yesterday, raises problems and agrees actions in 10 to 15 minutes, standing at the board.
What does SQDCP stand for?
Safety, Quality, Delivery, Cost and People. These five categories cover what matters to the business and its customers, and form the rows or letters of most daily boards. Some boards add M (Morale) or E (Environment), or use SQDC without People.
What are SQDCP letters or letter calendars?
Each letter (S, Q, D, C, P) is drawn with 31 boxes, one per day of the month. Every day, the team colours the box green if the target was met and red if not. After a few weeks, the pattern of red days shows at a glance which area needs attention and whether problems are recurring.
What is a tier meeting?
Tiered accountability is a cascade of short daily meetings: tier 1 is the team at its board, tier 2 the supervisors or area managers, tier 3 the plant leadership. Problems that cannot be solved at one tier are escalated to the next the same day, and support flows back down.
How do you choose the metrics?
Pick one daily metric per letter that the team can influence and measure every day: incidents or near misses for safety, first-pass yield or defects for quality, on-time delivery or output against plan, scrap or overtime for cost, attendance or training for people. Set a clear target so every day is unambiguously green or red.
Why use red squares and green circles?
About one man in twelve has a colour vision deficiency, and red and green are the hardest colours to tell apart. This board draws missed days as squares and on-target days as circles, so the board can be read without relying on colour.