10 Tips for Creating the Right Behaviors Through Visual Management

What Is Visual Management?

Visual management makes important production information easy to see, understand, and act upon.

With digital tools such as Good Solutions, manufacturers can display live production data through Dashboards, Timelines, and Reports, helping teams identify problems and respond quickly.

The goal is simple: Provide the right information to the right people at the right time to encourage the right actions.

Here are ten practical tips for making visual management more effective.

1. Start with the Behavior You Want to Create

Before creating a visualization, consider who will use it and what actions it should encourage.

Operators need information about current production, while Production Managers may need to identify recurring losses and improvement opportunities.

Tip: Ask yourself: What should someone do differently after seeing this information?

2. Make Production Performance Visible in Real Time

Live production information helps teams identify problems before they become larger.

Display important information such as:

Current machine status.
Production output compared with target.
Current production speed.
OEE and Availability.
Significant production losses.

Place dashboards where production employees can easily see them.

3. Keep Visualizations Simple

Too much information makes important deviations difficult to identify.

Focus on a few relevant KPIs that help users understand:

What is happening?
Are we performing as expected?
Where should we focus our attention?

Tip: If a KPI is displayed but never used to make decisions, consider removing it.

4. Group Related Information

Organize dashboards into clear sections, such as:

Current Production: Machine status, Articles, and Orders.
Shift Performance: OEE, output, and targets.
Production Losses: Stops, downtime, and loss reasons.
Quality: Scrap, rework, and deviations.

Consistent layouts make information easier to understand, especially for employees working across different production areas.

5. Use Feedback to Increase Engagement

Employees are more likely to engage with production data when they see how their actions influence results.

For example, showing how improved stop categorization helps identify and reduce downtime creates a clear connection between data collection and improvement.

Tip: Make improvements visible so teams can see the results of their efforts.

6. Present Information When It Is Needed

Some information is most valuable when a specific production event occurs.

Good Solutions supports event-driven workflows through Forms and Triggers.

For example, Forms can be triggered:

When an Article or Order starts or ends.
After a defined production quantity.
At scheduled times.
Following a categorized production stop.

Relevant Documents can also be linked to Articles, Orders, and Measure Points, helping Operators access the correct instructions.

7. Adapt Visualizations to Different Situations

Different activities require different information.

Situation	Relevant Information
During Production	Machine status, current output, production targets.
Shift Handover	Production progress, stops, deviations, active Orders.
Morning Meetings	OEE, significant losses, quality issues, improvement priorities.
Management Reviews	Performance trends, comparisons, improvement results.

Use different Good Solutions Dashboards and Reports to support each situation.

8. Choose the Right Visualization

Different types of data are best presented in different ways.

Large KPI values: Important current results.
Bar charts: Comparisons between Measure Points or shifts.
Trend charts: Performance changes over time.
Pareto charts: Largest production losses.
Timeline: Production activities and stops over time.

Choose the visualization that communicates the information most clearly.

9. Design for Readability

Visualizations should be easy to understand, even from a distance.

Use large, readable text for important information.
Leave enough space between information groups.
Use consistent colours to communicate status and deviations.
Avoid relying on colour alone; combine it with text or symbols.
Ensure sufficient contrast between text and backgrounds.
Consider lighting and reflections when using large screens.

Tip: Test dashboards from the same distance and location as the employees who will use them.

10. Continuously Improve Your Visual Management

Production priorities change, and your visualizations should evolve accordingly.

Regularly review whether the displayed information is relevant and useful.

Ask Operators and Team Leaders for feedback, remove unnecessary information, and introduce new KPIs when they support improvement activities.

Tip: A dashboard should evolve with your production challenges rather than remain unchanged simply because it was useful when first created.

Using Visual Management in Good Solutions

Good Solutions provides several tools that work together to support visual management:

Function	Purpose
Dashboards	Monitor production KPIs, targets, and deviations.
Timeline	Visually investigate production activities and losses.
Reports	Analyse performance and identify improvement opportunities.
Operator Tools	Give Operators access to relevant production information.
Forms & Triggers	Support structured checks and event-driven activities.
Documents	Provide access to relevant work instructions.

By combining these tools, manufacturers can move from simply collecting production data to using it for faster decisions and continuous improvement.

Key Takeaways

Effective visual management is not about displaying more information. It is about making the most important information visible and actionable.

The ultimate goal is to turn production data into the right behaviors: faster reactions, better decisions, greater engagement, and continuous improvements.