
226 Principles of Supply Chain Management
Customer Order Size
Recently, several customers insisted on more frequent deliveries of smaller orders. This
helped them keep their inventories low, improved their cash ow, and reduced the obso-
lescence of inventory when they changed the design of their product. Ultralean minimized
setups by building FGs inventory but have been stuck with some obsolete inventory when
their customers changed their specications.
Upon review, the batch ow system has some plusses; however, it also has some minuses.
Could lean manufacturing work better? What does it look like and what does it achieve?
What would Ultralean ...