When Taichi Ohno first visited the US in the early 1950’s he was very impressed with the availability and variety of items available at the local supermarket. It is written in Against All Odds that this impression served as the inspiration of the Just in Time system that Ohno and Shingo developed at Toyota. In Lean Manufacturing environments a supermarket is typically located at the end of a production line (or the entrance of a u-shaped cell). In a supermarket, a fixed amount of raw material, work in process, or finished material is kept. The supermarket is a tool of the pull system that helps signal demand for a product.