What Is Lean Manufacturing, and What Has It Got to Do with Small and Medium- Sized Manufacturers?

After World War II, there was a very small car company in a small country town making very bad cars. Most of the employees were former farmers, and the company’s production facilities were very basic. The company had major cash flow issues. Like any company in that situation, it lived handto-mouth, ordering the exact materials needed to fulfill requirements and trying really hard to assemble the cars quickly, sell them, and use cash from the sales to pay for more raw materials for the next cars on the production schedule.