tion and JIT supply operations are central to the lean revolution documented by Womack and Jones (1999) to have driven organizations, toward outstanding business success. However, in the experience of the authors, many attempts to introduce pull strategies both within and between organizations have resulted in malfunction and waste because of failures to understand and/or implement the necessary discipline.
             In order to pull production through the organization, there must shared understanding throughout production operations with regard to how work will proceed, particularly with respect to the pace of work. Obviously, work must proceed at the pace of work of those processes most closely interacting with the customer. That is, as work is pulled through production, the results of operational decisions must be pulled in the opposite direction back through production operations. While this may seem self-evident and simple-minded, a relative lack of successful implementation suggests that pull production can only result from learning the necessary elements of the disciplines associated with success. In the manufacturing, this discipline has resulted in a time-honed example of a systemic approach to managing the organization, such tha
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