Can You Plan Using ?Push? and Execute Using ?Pull?? LEAN PLANNER? ? A LEAN planning solution to pull any product on any node of your supply chain? today! In an earlier blog post, Why are we busy pushing – Pull your plants for a LEANER supply chain, I concluded that no one wants to build to forecast, but most of us are doing exactly that. I also argued that you don?t have to be in a perfect LEAN state to build to customer demand. You can indeed do this in your present environment starting today. Forget about the inefficiencies of building to forecast?there really is a better way. We all know what it is like to plan in a push environment. A finished product forecast is fed to the MRP (Material Requirements Planning)/APS (Advanced Planning System) system. Based on product structure, lead times, lot sizes and other planning parameters, it spits out a supply plan for all the materials that make up the product. This plan is then used to do capacity planning for in-house produced assemblies. We send it to our vendors for them to plan their supply. A similar plan is put to work managing our warehouses, distributors