To Pull or Not to Pull: What Is the Question?

The terms pull and lean production have become cornerstones of modern manufacturing practice. But, although they are widely used, they are less widely understood. In this paper, we argue that while the academic literature has steadily revealed the richness of the pull/lean concepts, the practitioner literature has progressively simplified these terms to the point where serious misunderstandings now exist. In hopes of reducing confusion, we offer general but precise definitions of pull and lean. Specifically, we argue that pull is essentially a mechanism for limiting WIP and lean is fundamentally about minimizing the cost of buffering variability.