M: Hello English learners! Welcome back to EnglishPod! My name is Marco. E: And I’m Erica. M: And we’re bringing you a very advanced lesson today. E: That’s right. Um, we’re talking about another business topic, aren’t we? M: It’s a topic that’s kind of popular these days all about efficiency and reducing costs. So, we’re gonna be talking about the just-in-time philosophy. E: Um, I don’t know much about this philosophy, uh, so good thing we’ve got Marco here. M: Hehe. Well, what we’re gonna be looking at is not really in-depth. We’re just gonna be looking at some basic points of what a just-in-time philosophy would be like in a company. E: Uhu, but what we’re really gonna be looking at is the language to do with this philosophy, right? M: Exactly. We’re gonna be looking at some, uh, technical terms, some, uh… and some other useful phrases that you can use when you’re talking in a business setting. E: Okay, well, why don’t we get started with the language then? M: Okay, let’s take a look at “vocabulary preview”. Voice: Vocabulary preview. M: On vocabulary preview today we have the word lead time. E: Lead time. M: Lead time. E: L-E-A-D. Lead. Lead time. M: Right, like lead. This is something that factories usually would use. E: Yep, yeah. I guess lead time is the time in between point A and point B in a production schedule, right? M: Right, so, you could have, for example, production lead time. E: So, that’s the time between when you make an order, um, and when the… the product is finished. M: Exactly. And you could also have delivery lead time. E: So, the time between when you place an order and when, uh, the product gets delivered to you. M: So, depending on the companies you have differently time. Some are three days, other are five days… E: Yeah. M: Other are forty five days. E: Hm, and we at EnglishPod have a two-week lead-time for our… our podcast, right? M: But our delivery lead time is every other day. E: That’s true. M: Nice. Okay, that’s all we’re gonna be previewing today. So, why don’t we just listen to the dialogue and then we’ll come back and explain some of these, uh, tricky vocabulary words that we’ll see. A: I called this meeting today in order to discuss our manufacturing plan. As I’m sure you’re all aware, with the credit crunch, and the global financial cri- sis, we’re obligated to look for more cost efficient ways of producing our goods. We don’t want to have to be looking at redundancies. So, we’ve outlined a brief plan to implement the just-in-time philosophy. B: We have two basic points that we want to focus on. First of all, we want to reduce our lead time. C: Why would want to do that? I think this is not an area that really needs to be worked on. B: Well, we want to reduce production and delivery lead timesfor better overall efficiency. A: Right, production lead times can be reduced by moving work stations closer together, reducing queue length, like for example, reducing the num- ber of jobs waiting to be processed at a given ma- chine, and improving the coordination and coop- eration between successive processes. Delivery lead times can be reduced through close cooper- ation with suppliers, possibly by inducing suppli- ers to locate closer to the factory or working with a faster shipping company. C: I see… That makes sense. B: The second point is that we want to require sup- plier quality assurance and implement a zero de- fects quality program. We currently have far too many errors that lead to defective items and there- fore, they must be eliminated. A quality control at the source program must be implemented to give workers the personal responsibility for the quality of the work they do, and the authority to stop pro- duction when something goes wrong. C: I’m with you on this one. It’s essential that we reduce these errors; we’ve got to force our suppli- ers to reduce their mistakes. A: Exactly. Well, let’s look at how we’re going to put this plan into action. First...(fade out) M: Okay, so, they’re gonna implement just-in-time in their company. E: Yes! Yeah, I guess they’re putting in some… some cost control measures. So… so, Marco, there’s some great language in here, um, why don’t we look at it now in “language takeaway”? Voice: Language takeaway. M: Okay, the first word today - redundancies. E: Redundancies. M: Redundancies. E: Redundancies. M: So, this is kind of a strange word, because usually a redundancy is when you’re speaking, right? E: Um, yeah, maybe when you… you say something that’s already been said. M: Exactly, you say something that has already been said, but we also use it in the business world. E: Right, and it comes from the base word redundant, right? M: Okay. E: Um, meaning “extra”, more than what’s needed. M: Okay. E: So, when a person or position is made redundant, um, basically it means they get laid off, right? M: Right, so, redundancies are a synonym of… of layoffs. E: Exactly. M: Okay. E: Yep. M: Alright, let’s take a look at our next word - workstations. E: Workstations. M: Workstations. E: Workstations. M: So, workstation could be anything from your desk… E: Yeah, or maybe a workbench. M: A workbench. E: Or even a place on a production line. M: Right, so, your, uh… uh, certain machine or something like that. E: Yeah, so, basically, a workstation is the area where you work. M: Okay. Okay, so, you can say “can we get a new workstation for the new team member?” E: Uhu. Or I could say, um, “I wanna move my workstation closer to my employees”. M: Alright, so, workstation. E: Uhu. M: Okay, let’s take a look at our next word - at a given machine. E: At a given machine. M: At a given. E: At a given. M: This is an interesting way to say “at any machine”? E: Exactly, um… M: Okay. E: Yeah, given here is operating exactly the say… same as… here the word given is operating exactly the same way as any. M: As any. E: Yep. M: Okay, so, let’s listen to some examples of… of how we can change it up a little bit and we can use this given word. Voice: Example one. A: In this factory how many cars are in production at any given time? Voice: Example two. B: On any given day about forty million people use the Internet. Voice: Example three. C: Firefighters have to be ready to attend an emergency at any given moment. M: Alright, so, any given time, at any given moment. E: Yep. Um, any given day. M: Okay, now let’s take a look at our last word today - defective. E: Defective. M: Defective. E: Defective. M: So, if something is defective… E: It has a problem with it. M: It has a problem. E: Yeah. M: We can say defective is an adjective. E: Right, and the noun is defect. M: Defect. E: Yep. M: So, if something has a defect it is defective. E: Right, so, for example, maybe you produce chairs and… and you… you make one and this chair is missing a wheel. M: Okay, so, it’s defective. E: Yes! The defect is the missing wheel. M: The defect is the mi… Okay. E: Uhu. M: So, before we listen to our dialogue again, I wanna take a look at this phrase I’m with you on this one. E: I’m with you on this one. M: I’m with you on this one. E: I’m with you on this one. M: So, what does that… what does that mean exactly? I’m with you on this one. E: I… I agree with you. M: I agree with you on this point. E: Exactly. M: Okay. So if you agree with somebody on s… on a certain point you would say “oh, I’m with you on this one”, I agree with you. E: Exactly. M: Okay. So, now let’s listen to our dialogue again and, uh, we’ll come back and talk a little bit more about the history of this just-in-time. A: I called this meeting today in order to discuss our manufacturing plan. As I’m sure you’re all aware, with the credit crunch, and the global financial cri- sis, we’re obligated to look for more cost efficient ways of producing our goods. We don’t want to have to be looking at redundancies. So, we’ve outlined a brief plan to implement the just-in-time philosophy. B: We have two basic points that we want to focus on. First of all, we want to reduce our lead time. C: Why would want to do that? I think this is not an area that really needs to be worked on. B: Well, we want to reduce production and delivery lead timesfor better overall efficiency. A: Right, production lead times can be reduced by moving work stations closer together, reducing queue length, like for example, reducing the num- ber of jobs waiting to be processed at a given ma- chine, and improving the coordination and coop- eration between successive processes. Delivery lead times can be reduced through close cooper- ation with suppliers, possibly by inducing suppli- ers to locate closer to the factory or working with a faster shipping company. C: I see… That makes sense. B: The second point is that we want to require sup- plier quality assurance and implement a zero de- fects quality program. We currently have far too many errors that lead to defective items and there- fore, they must be eliminated. A quality control at the source program must be implemented to give workers the personal responsibility for the quality of the work they do, and the authority to stop pro- duction when something goes wrong. C: I’m with you on this one. It’s essential that we reduce these errors; we’ve got to force our suppli- ers to reduce their mistakes. A: Exactly. Well, let’s look at how we’re going to put this plan into action. First...(fade out) E: Alright, so, Marco, I mentioned at the beginning of the lesson that I don’t know much about just-in-time. M: Uhu. E: Um, but luckily you do, right? M: Hehe. Yeah. I… I know a little bit about it. E: So… So, tell me a little bit about where this philosophy came from. What are the origins of this idea? M: It actually became really popular with Toyota and it was called the Toyota Production System. E: Uhu. M: So, many people think it’s Japanese but in reality the Japanese got it from the United States. It’s a philosophy that was thought up by Ford Motor Company… E: Yep. M: In order to improve their production line, but when the Japanese visited Ford Motor Company it wasn’t fully implemented yet. E: Uhu. M: And, oddly enough, they found this philosophy working already in a Piggly Wiggly. E: What’s a Piggly Wiggly? M: Piggly Wiggly was a chain of, uh… of grocery stores in the United States. E: Okay. M: Uh, I’m not sure if they’re still around, but, um… but, yeah, they were really big and basically Piggly Wiggly was using this to improve their whole system of shipping and of stocking and everything. E: Okay, so, how does it work? M: So, basically, what you try to do is make your processes more efficient, reduce the amount of space you’re using, etcetera. E: Yep. M: And this was really important for Japanese because, of course, they don’t have that much space in Japan to have these huge warehouses like in other countries. E: So, what you’re saying is they’re producing goods, um, just for the time they need it, right? M: Exactly, so, trying to not be overstocked. E: Yeah. M: Or… E: Or have like a long lead time or something. M: Long lead times when you have to keep something… in a warehouse. E: Like in a warehouse, yeah. M: Exactly. E: Yeah M: So, that’s why it’s so efficient and also it’s about improving the efficiency between processes, so, uh, what sometimes called a bottleneck. You can have really good processes in the beginning… E: Hm. M: But in the end maybe you have only one workstation that’s taking all these orders and everything gets bottled up and… and it causes delay. E: It’s slow, yeah. So, in the dialogue they want to implement the just-in-time strategy, um, as a way of avoiding redundancies, but it sounds to me like actually this might cause redundancies sometimes. M: Hehe. Well, yeah, sometimes it does. Sometimes, um… sometimes when you make workstations more efficient or when you make all your processes work more fluidly, sometimes inevitably you will have to layoff some people that are… that are redundant. E: Okay. Have you ever worked in a company where they’ve implemented, uh, just-in-time? M: No, actually, I’ve never really worked at a place where this philosophy was working but… uh, I did used to work at a place where we had six-sigma which is, uh, kind of… which is a little bit similar. E: Hm. M: Yeah. E: Well, I guess we’ll need a lesson on six-sigma in the future. M: Hehe. Yeah, we’ll see if we come up with, uh, six-sigma and what it means and it’s kind of interesting, but, uh, we wanna hear what you think. E: Yes! Have you guys worked in a place where, um, they… where they used just-in-time? M: Exactly. Or if you have any quality control measures or how does your company avoid having defective items or defective services? E: So, visit our website, uh, englishpod.com and Marco and I are always around to respond your comments and answer your questions. M: Exactly, so, until then it’s… E: Good bye! M: Bye!