ABSTRACT
It is almost a century since Henry Ford started to manufacture Model Ts on a production line. As long as he made the same number of cars each day, week or month, his manufacturing control was relatively simple. If he was making 100 cars per day, he needed 100 engines per day, 400 wheels, 100 radiators, 200 headlamps, etc. It was easy to tell the supplying operations how much to make. Provided that the assembly line schedule did not change, both the internal and external suppliers made the same this week as they did last and could confidently predict that it would be the same next week.
