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With flow layout we had less travel and more production. But we still couldn't produce fast enough. We were pushing work: each station filled a batch and pushed it to the next. So when one station hadn't finished its batch, the next station was idle even if there was work it could do. Batches and push behaviour created waiting.
In a pull system, the next station pulls work when it's ready—it takes completed items from the previous station instead of waiting for a full batch to be pushed. So people work on things as they become available; we don't hold the next step idle while we finish a batch. We introduce pull: the downstream station sends an agent to get work from upstream when it needs it. We also use blue bins (or equivalent logic) so good items are clearly the ones that move forward; the flow of "good" work is visible. The change: switch from push to pull and show the agent fetching work. Less idle time, more continuous work, and we use capacity better without adding people.
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