Push and pull system 2

Yes, I am going to talk about push and pull system again. You do not need to misunderstand that what is the topic I want to talk when you saw the photo shown on the left hand side. I am just using a common sample for supporting my explanation of pull system and it is easiler to let you understand what I say.

Pull system - Kaiten sushi

(回転寿司 かいてんずし )

Kaiten = Rotating

Zushi = Sushi

If you read up on Japanese etiquette, you'll be told that if you want to take somebody out to dinner, don't take them to sushi. It would be like taking somebody to McDonald's. In Japan you can find Kaiten Zushi shops all over the place and often they are open very late. Later than most other food places. Sorry, once again, I am not going to where to eat sushi. Actually, Kaiten sushi is the typical pull system in food industry. I list out some main points as below,

1. People only takes which they want to eat. The cook only put the sushi back to the empty place which taken by customer. This is representative of customer pull. Usually, the different kinds of sushi were put in a special sequence and it is easiler for the cook to find out which kind of sushi was taken so that he can replace the empty dish.

2. The WIP is only stored on the rotary and it would not cause any extra scrap. It is also easiler for them to dig out which kind of sushi is the best selling product, so that the restaurant can better handling the material ordering. Therefore, the material inventory is low.

3. For quality, every dish running on the rotary will not last long and maintains the fresh of sushi. If you observe the handling of kaiten sushi carefully, they can find that the cook only take out the fish from the refrigurator when they needed. The cook prepare the sushi when some dishes are empty.

4. It is more flexible to handling the product. When the cook find out one kind of sushi is more favorable for those customers, the cook can place more dishes of that kind of sushi on the rotary instead of other sushi. If you have visited the Toyota plant before, you can find that the production line of Toyota just similar to the rotary of sushi. Every car on the line is different in model and color.

5. At last, one more point we need to consider. Even in kaiten sushi, there is visual management in place. The corner of bottom left in photo, we can find a board to show the price for different color of dish. The customer can easiler to handle what kind of sushi they want according to the money in their pocket. Very smart!

Buffet dinner - push system

May be I do not need explain here in detail because I think most of the people has buffet before. Restaurant only put much food on the table and let the customers to pick what they wanted. Sometime, you will find that the food has already become cold and degenerative. Some kind of food, which is more favorable of customer, it will be empty in short time and you need to wait for a long time to pick more after the cook refilled of that. Also, you need to pay a fixed amount, usually is not cheap, but no matter how much food you have eaten. The biggest problem is the push system is pushing you eat more and more, because of there is too much food and you want to balance what you paid. It made you eat more and the fat in your body also more and more. It is not lean!!!

May be the explanation above is not detail enough, hope you give me some comment to make it complete. Thank you very much!