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Alternative Perspectives

Any alternatives to the above definitions have been either too short on details (like Taiichi Ohno in his book on the Toyota Production System), or too broad and imprecise (like James Womack and Daniel Jones in their book "The Machine That Changed the World" in which the term 'lean production' was coined). (Hopp & Spearman, 2004, p.141)

For instance, Ohno, while not defining 'pull' precisely, outlined the two main elements needed to implement pull: -

1. autonomation - standard work methods and respect for human beings
2. level production
(Hopp & Spearman, 2004, p.140).

Similarly, Womack and Jones define pull in a limited way as: -

"Pull, in simplest terms, means that no one upstream should produce a good or service until the customer downstream asks for it, but actually following this rule in practice is a bit more complicated." (Hopp & Spearman, 2004, p.141)

Womack & Jones also use the term 'lean' very loosely to mean: -

"Eliminating unnecessary steps, aligning all steps in an activity in a continuous flow, recombining labour into cross-functional teams dedicated to that activity, and continually striving for improvement." (Womack & Jones 1994, p. 93).

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* Contributed by -
Vaishnav Tadatmya Ashok,
IIM, Lucknow.