From the course: Lean Inventory Management
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One-piece flow
- Every practice in lean manufacturing is intended to support a just in time inventory strategy, which means you move inventory only when it is needed. One of the building blocks of lean inventory management is the concept of one-piece flow. Now don't let the name fool you. Most people define one-piece flow as processing one item at a time throughout the factory from start to finish. That certainly is the ideal situation, and some industries like chip makers have been working on this goal for many years. But some companies define the term one as one customer order rather than one unit of product. That's a good measure because lean teaches us that all our activities should be based on actual demand from our customers. No matter how you define one piece, the idea is that products should move continuously through the factory from one work station to the next. In fact, one-piece flow is often referred to as continuous flow manufacturing. In other words, there is no batching of products…
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