Traditionally, Companies in the United States Have Employed a "Push

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The Answer is A push manufacturer begins by forecasting total orders for a time period. The manufacturer orders materials based on the forecast. Production schedules are produced based on the forecast. Production is then "pushed" through. Because production is based on sales, the company may end up producing units for which there is not as much demand as forecasted or have too few units available of a product for which there is heavy demand. This creates costs of storing excess inventory and opportunity cost of lost sales. In addition, because units are pushed through the system, the timing of receiving materials is not balanced to the production of activities, particularly at production bottlenecks, which results in a wasteful buildup of inventories, either temporary or permanent. Push production can reduce motivation to improve quality and can reinforce motivation to overuse non-bottleneck activities.
A pull manufacturer "pulls" production through the process by customer orders, rather than "pushes" them through with master production schedules. A sales order triggers a production order. The production order triggers orders to suppliers, who ship parts immediately. The Just-in-Time approach is flexible to customer needs and requires lower inventory costs than traditional methods. Because suppliers tend to be preapproved and more reliable, costs of quality are reduced. Nonvalue-added activities such as storage, quality control, downtime, waiting time are avoided in a pull manufacturing system.

Traditionally, Companies in the United States Have Employed a "Push

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