A favorite Twilight Zone episode that played during Labor Day weekend put me in mind of the stressful “push production” environment that many organizations still endure today.

In a technical sense, push production refers to launching orders into production before customer requirements are known and then pushing them along, some faster than others, as requirements become clearer. Shigeo Shingo referred to this production method as “speculative,” which is a euphemism for guessing. With a forecast and a master production schedule at the front end of the push, perhaps this could be elevated to educated guessing.

In my materials resource planning days, I witnessed the ugly consequences of the automated push: Computer-assisted attempts to tweak the push (e.g., exponential smoothing, safety stock, pan size, shrinkage, yield, order point, n-days supply, fixed and variable lead times, transit times, minimum lot size) that were intended to optimize the guessing, but ultimately resulted in overproduction, overtime, and overburden.

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