The empowerment of workers to stop the production line when they encounter a problem. The production line or machine remains stopped until the supervisor, manager, engineer, maintenance personnel, or other support staff have identified the problem and taken corrective action. In actuality, the operator signals the supervisor who assesses the situation and determines if the problem can be remedied before the end of the work cycle. If it can, the signal system is reset. If it cannot be remedied that quickly the line stops at the end of the work cycle. The delayed production line stoppage lessens the reluctance of the employee to call for help, and decreases unnecessary line stoppages.
Each call to the supervisor should be recorded in a log and root causes should be analyzed to ensure it is not a recurring problem.