If you have a large number of items to put together, it may be better to do them one by one, instead of like an assembly line.
Let's say you're in the widget business, and you decide to put together 1000 widgets that contain 4 parts each. How would you go about it?
Most people would start by building 1000 of each of the 4 parts, then use a traditional assembly line approach by systematically assembling the parts in one big batch.
They start by adding part 1 to part 2, then repeating it 1000 times. Next, they take the combined results from the first step, and add part 3, repeating this step 1000 times. After that, they add the 4th part to each of the units to complete the widget. If all goes well, you now have 1000 widgets.
As efficient as that sounds, there's actuall
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Continue...Lean Production: Why Small Batches are Better Than Large Batches...