Dickeson--Lift, Pull and Other Dirty Words

Fourth are the plants that operate on a 24-hour, seven-day week plan. There's no weekend or holiday to provide some "slack" in the schedule to accommodate problems that inevitably occur.

What's the answer to eliminating pulls? A Black Box—a computer! Magic! Yeah! "Let's buy that scheduling software from Merlin Inc. and put it in a PC in the planning office. We know that run lengths are getting shorter, that our customers are demanding shorter lead times and lower prices, and that we're compromising more delivery dates every week. We must have an answer."