What is Flexibility for Lean Manufacturing? [the broken link was removed] by Jon Miller:
True flexibility should be a measure not of a machining system or an assembly department but of an entire value stream from the end customer through the supply chain and back to the end customer (from request to fulfillment) and this system’s (value stream’s) ability to deliver Every Product Every X with X being months, weeks, days, hours, etc. Planning and building capacity based on forecasts results in false economy of scale thinking, which reinforces customer behavior that volume is cheaper and lead-times are long. Being able to make only what the customer is truly buying right now is a Lean measure of flexibility.
