$1-$ How is lean thinking associated with supply chain management?

$2-$ Use an example to show how you could use lean thinking with a supplier and a customer.

$3-$ What are the advantages and disadvantages of making small, frequent purchases from just a few suppliers? How do we overcome the disadvantages?

$4-$ What is the origin of the term kanbans and why are they used in lean systems?

$5-$ Heavey Compressors uses a lean production assembly line to make its compressors. In one assembly area, the demand is $100$ parts per eight$-$hour day. It uses a container that holds eight parts. It typically takes about six hours to round$-$trip a container from one work center to the next and back again. Heavey also desires to hold $15$ percent safety stock of this part in the system.

a$)$ How many containers should Heavey Compressors be using?

b$)$ Calculate the maximum system inventory for this part.

c$)$ If the safety stock percentage is reduced to zero, how would this impact the number of containers, all else being equal?

$6-$ Using the information from previous problem, if Heavey desires to reduce their number of containers to eight, how does this impact the system? What has to change, if it assumed that demand, container size, and safety stock percentage don't change, and what is that change?