taiichi-ohno's visit to American supermarkets, where he observed that items on shelves were replenished only when customers pulled them — no central schedule dictated restocking. This became the founding insight of pull-production and the kanban system: production should be triggered by downstream consumption, not upstream planning. The irony was rich — Ohno found the inspiration for Japan's revolutionary production system in the aisles of American grocery stores, while American manufacturers remained locked in push-based mass production. The supermarket metaphor became central to TPS vocabulary: intermediate inventory points in the factory are still called "supermarkets." Date is approximate — Ohno visited the US multiple times in the 1950s.