The question here is what is the best method of process control?
a. should a process push its output to the next stage? or
b. should a process pull its input from the previous stage?
In marketing:
Do we sell the product to customer or
Do we make the customer buy our product?
Who should be an active participant of a transaction?
Is it the giver?
or
the taker?
Pull mode is the natural and sustainable model in most of the situations. A process should be designed to make the next stage "pull" the product of the previous stage.
A customer sees the "value" in the product and starts the buying process.
Once the "buy" in initiated, all the necessary steps will be executed to fulfill the request.
The skill of designing such a process lies in reducing the "waiting time" of the customer when he requires the product. Depending on the type of the product, the sufficient inventory should be maintained. But even in the case of customer to wait for a reasonable period, it is fine. (As the value is attractive, customer will wait!)
Pull will gently fill a gap and add value to the customer.
Push will generally "replace" something at the customer. (or cause over consumption or wastage!)
Present World human population is suffering from a "Great PUSH Syndrome" in all the production to consumption processes. Customer has really no time even to "think" about it. That is the force of PUSH in this world as of today.
I can only hope customers and the producers will understand the gentle nature of "pull" process as explained and make the world a better place by using it!