As lean production methods reduce changeover and setup times and thus enable smaller economic lot sizes and less work-in-process inventory, is the importance of quality increased or decreased? Why?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Increased. The reason for this is simply that as lean production takes hold, there is a lower margin for error. A defective component can totally shut down a production line where, with plenty of inventory, the defect can be discarded with minimal effect on other processes. An incorrect answer can be logically construed. An answer of "decreased" can be defended by the notion that with very brief set-up times it doesn't take too long to set up to replace the defective component. However brief that time is, it is time that several other processes are being starved for components. The quote from the text is, "To enable this pull process to work smoothly, lean production demands high levels of quality at each stage of the process, strong vendor relations, and a fairly predictable demand for the end product."