I've been giving several examples of push, pull, and flow.  In my last post, we looked at how flow could be disrupted at a single process step.  Today, let's look at a more comprehensive process.

Get Raw Materials

1. Long lead times
2. Lots of variability in lead times
3. You don't get what you ordered
4. You get what you ordered but it's no good
5. You have short lead times, you get what you ordered, it's good...but you buy so much of it that most of it sits for months before you use it.

First Process Step

See my last post

Move Work In Process to Second Process Step

Sometimes this happens immediately.  Sometimes it takes three months.  On average, stuff sits...waiting....for about a week (let's say).

Second Process Step

See my last post.

Move Work In Process to Third Process Step

Sometimes this happens immediately.  Sometimes it takes three months.  On average, stuff sits...waiting....for about a week.

Third Process Step

See my last post.

Move Finished Goods to Customer's Dock

Sometimes this happens immediately.  Sometimes it takes nine months.  On average, stuff sits...waiting....for about two months.

You get my drift.  And the astute among you will see that I've portrayed a simple value stream map (and simple ones are the best).  You'll also see that it doesn't matter if I call this push or pull.  (For those of you that insist it can't be a pull system given the last step, go ahead and change that one to "Happens Immediately", but leave the rest of the "map" the same.)  What we don't have is flow.  I'll come back to this in my next post and talk more about it.