Learn English quickly with Smart Podcast | Episode 52

hello English Learners welcome back to English pod my name is Marco and I'm Erica and we're bringing you a very Advanced lesson today that's right um we're talking about another business topic aren't we it's a topic that's kind of popular these days all about efficiency and reducing costs so we're going to be talking about the just in time philosophy um I don't know much about this philosophy uh so good thing we've got Marco here well what we are going to be looking at is not really in depth we're just going to be looking at some

basic points of what a Justin Time philosophy would be like in a company mhm but what we're really going to be looking at is the language to do with this philosophy right exactly we're going to 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 okay well why don't we get started with the language then okay let's take a look at vocabulary preview vocabulary preview on vocabulary preview today we have the word lead time lead time lead time e a d

lead lead time right like lead this is something that factories usually would use yep yeah I guess lead time is the time in between point a and point B on a production schedule right right so you could have for example production lead time so that's the time between when you make an order um and when the the product is finished exactly and you could also have delivery lead time so the time between when you place an order and when uh the product gets delivered to you so depending on the companies you have different lead times

some are 3 days other are 5 days other are 45 days and we at English pod have a two we lead time for our our podcast right but our delivery lead time is every other day that's true nice okay that's all we're going to 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 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 crisis we are 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 we have two basic points that we want to focus on first of all we want to reduce our lead time why would we want to do that I think this is not an area that really needs to be worked on well we want to reduce production and delivery lead times for better overall efficiency right production lead times can be

reduced by moving workstations closer together reducing Q length like for example reducing the number of jobs waiting to be processed at a given machine and improving the coordination and cooperation between successive processes delivery lead times can be reduced through close cooperation with suppliers possibly by inducing suppliers to locate closer to the factory or working with a faster shipping company I see that makes sense the second point is that we want to require supplier quality assurance and Implement a zero defects quality program we currently have far too many errors that lead to defective items and therefore

they must be eliminated a quality control at the source program must be implemented to give workers personal responsibility for the quality of the work they do and the authority to stop production when something goes wrong I'm with you on this one it's essential that we reduce these errors we've got to force our suppliers to reduce their mistakes exactly well let's look at how we're going to put this plan into action [Music] first okay so they're going to implement just in time in their company 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 and language takeaway language takeaway okay the first word today redundancies redundancies redundancies redundancies so this is kind of a strange word because usually a redundancy is when you're speaking right um yeah maybe when you you say something that's already been said exactly you say something that has already been said but we also use it in the business world right and it comes from the base word redundant right okay um meaning extra more than what's needed okay so when a

person or position is made redundant um basically it means they get laid off right right so redundancies are a synonym of of layoffs exactly okay all right let's take a look at our next word workstations workstations workstations workstations so workstation could be anything from your desk yeah or maybe a workbench a workbench or even a place on a production line right so you're a certain machine or something like that so basically a workstation is the area where you work okay okay so you can say can we get a new workstation for the new team member

mhm or I could say um I want to move my workstation closer to my employees all right so workstation mm okay let's take a look at our next word at a given machine at a given machine at a given at a given this is an interesting way to say at any machine exactly um yeah given here is operating exactly the same same as here the word given is operating exactly the same way as any as any yeah 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 example one in this Factory how many cars are in production at any given time example two on any given day about 40 million people use the internet example three firefighters have to be ready to attend an emergency at any given moment all right so any given time at any given moment yep um any given day okay now let's take a look at our last word today defective defective defective defective so if something is defective it has a problem with it it has a problem yeah we can say defective is

an adjective right and the noun is defect defect y so if something has a defect it is defective right so for example maybe you produce chairs and and you you make one and this chair is missing a wheel okay so it's defective yes the defect is the missing wheel the defect is the okay so before we listen to our dialogue again I want to take a look at this phrase I'm with you on this one I'm with you on this one I'm with you on this one I'm with you on this one so what is

that what does that mean exactly I'm with you on this one I I agree with you I agree with you on this point exactly okay so if you agree with somebody on on a certain point you would say oh I'm with you on this one I agree with you exactly 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 [Music] time 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 crisis we're obligated to look for more cost-efficient ways of producing our Goods we don't want to have to be looking at redundancy so we've outlined a brief plan to implement the just in time philosophy we have two basic points that we want to focus on first of all we want to reduce our lead time why would we want to do that I think this is not an ARA that really needs to be walked on well we want to reduce production and delivery lead times for better overall efficiency right

production lead times can be reduced by moving workstations closer together reducing Q length like for example reducing the number of jobs waiting to be processed at a given machine and improving the coordination and cooperation between successive processes delivery lead times can be reduced through close cooperation with suppliers possibly by inducing suppliers to locate closer to the factory or working with a faster shipping company I see that makes sense the second point is that we want to require supplier quality assurance and Implement a zero defects quality program we currently have far too many errors that lead

to defective items and therefore they must be eliminated a quality control at the source program must be implemented to give workers personal responsibility for the quality of the work they do and the authority to stop production when something goes wrong I'm Wai on this one it's essential that we reduce these errors we've got to force our suppliers to reduce their mistakes exactly well let's look at how we're going to put this plan into action first all right so Marco I mentioned at the beginning of the lesson that I don't know much about just in time

um but luckily you do right yeah I know a little bit about it so so tell me a little bit about where this philosophy came from what are the origins of this idea it actually became really popular with Toyota and it was called the Toyota production system 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 mortar company in order to improve their production line but when the Japanese visited Ford Motor Company it wasn't fully implemented yet and oddly enough

they found this philosophy working already in a Piggly Wiggly what's a Piggly Wiggly Piggly Wiggly was a chain of uh of grocery stores in the United States okay 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 okay so how does it work so basically what you try to do is make your processes more efficient reduce the amount of space you're using Etc 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 so what you're saying is they're producing Goods um just for the time they need it right exactly so trying to be overstocked or or have like a long lead time or something long lead times where you have to keep something in a warehouse exactly 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 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 delays so in the dialogue they want to implement the just in time y um as a way of avoiding redundancies but it sounds to me like actually this might cause redundancies sometimes 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 lay off some people that are that are redundant okay have you ever worked in a company where

they've implemented uh just in time 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 yeah well I guess we'll need a lesson on Six Sigma in the future yeah we'll see if we come up with a Six Sigma and what it means and it's kind of interesting but uh we want to hear what you think yes have you guys worked in a place where um they

where they use just in time exactly or if you have any quality control measures or how does your company avoid having def defective items or defective [Music] Services the English pod audio review listen to the meaning then say the vocabulary word make a person do something because it is the right thing to do obligate cheap not expensive cost efficient layoff the ending of workers employment redundancy put a plan into action implement the time between the beginning of a process and its [Music] end lead time the ability to produce something more quickly efficiency an area where

a person works and does his job workstation used to refer to a specific time place or thing given having a mistake or error that makes something not perfect defective a mistake or error that makes something not perfect def defect supply of goods stored in a place inventory the cost of holding inventory carrying cost large building where products or goods are stored Warehouse the supply of goods for sale or available stuck something that slows a process down bottleneck let's try that faster having a mistake or error that makes something not perfect defective large building where products

or goods are stored Warehouse the supply of goods for sale or available stock something that slows a process down bottleneck the ability to produce something more quickly efficiency cheap not expensive cost efficient supply of goods stored in a place inventory put a plan into action implement a mistake or error that makes something not perfect defect an area where a person works and does his job workstation make a person do something because it is the right thing to do obligate the time between the beginning of a process and its end lead time the cost of holding

inv ventory carrying cost layoff the ending of workers's employment redundancy used to refer to a specific time place or thing given now say the word and hear it in a sentence redundancy our company is rest structuring and it looks like we will have redundancies redundancy I am sorry to inform you that you have become redundant redundancy we have to prepare a plan to handle potential redundancies lead time we offer a very low lead time at our Factory you can get our products in less than 3 days lead time the standard lead time for manufacturing tires

is about one week lead time customers are complaining about our delivery lead time we should try and get the products to them faster workstation we need to increase the number of workstations available for our employees workstation we have a total of 20 workstations but two of them are not functional workstation Jim you should clean up your workstation you have papers and garbage everywhere given in this Factory how many cars are in production at any given time given on any given day about 40 million people use the internet given firefighters have to be ready to attend

an emergency at any given moment defective can I return this defective TV it doesn't work defective we try to reduce the number of defective products by having strict quality control defective it seems that a defective light bulb was the cause of the fire [Music]