ABSTRACT
This chapter examines flow, pull, and visual signals and contrast their simplicity and clarity with the complexity of material requirements planning, a popular manufacturing push-scheduling technique. It explores kanban, heijunka, and mixed model production and aims to understand their impact on stability, efficiency, and flexibility and proposes a step-by-step process for creating an effective IT demand management decision-making process. One of the key IT lessons learned from decades of Lean manufacturing is to keep processes and supporting information systems simple. Lean manufacturing practitioners have learned to simplify their production processes, aligning, balancing, and reallocating resources so work will flow along value streams, orchestrating activity through pull signals and visual cues. Many Lean manufacturers are moving toward this sweet spot of mass customization where an agile enterprise can respond to varying customer requirements with short lead time and relatively low cost. Lean flow naturally simplifies demand planning. When delivery cycles become faster, the planning horizon becomes shorter.
