Question #2: Should Acme build steering brackets to a finished goods supermarket or directly to
shipping? At Acme, steering brackets are small (easy to store) parts that have only two varieties. The
customer's demand rises and falls somewhat unpredictably, and Acme is uncertain about the
reliability of future- state changes to be made. So Acme has opted to begin with a finished goods
supermarket and to move closer to "produce to shipping" in the future. Acme can use the
customer's thirty day forecast to determine the amount of production capacity needed in period
immediately the ahead. (Lean plants periodically adjust the number of operators in assembly and re-distribute the work elements to match output to changes in demand.) Acme will determine actual
production by means of kanban coming back upstream to the weld/assembly cell from the finished
goods supermarket. Since the customer buys in multiples of 20-bracket trays, this is the simple
choice for "kanban size." That is, each tray of twenty left- drive or right-drive brackets in the
finished-goods supermarket has on it one production kanban. As the shipping department
withdraws trays from the supermarket to stage them for delivery, the kanban from those trays are
sent back to assembly. Each of those kanban essentially says, "The customer has just consumed
twenty left-drive (or right-drive) brackets, please make another 20." Note: For custom products you
may not be able to create a supermarket of finished goods. (See diagram at bottom of page 49.)