🛒Ohno took the idea of pull from American supermarkets

🏛️ Taiichi Ohno says in 📕 Toyota Production System that the model for kanban was the American supermarket (my paraphrase). A shelf is restocked with what customers have just taken, no more. He turned that round for the factory: the later process goes to the earlier one and takes only what it needs, and the earlier one makes only enough to replace it.

By his own account Toyota was already trying this in its machine shop in the early 1950s, before he had toured the United States in 1956 and stood in one.

Why I kept it: a car plant copied a grocer.

So what? Good ideas come from the next industry over. The principle is in 🧩 Pull systems: make what was taken.

At work the equivalent is a dispatcher asking for the next five exceptions when ready, not being handed 214 at 07:00.