mizusumashi
A water spider or ‘mizusumashi‘ in Japanese (see our listing of Japanese Lean terms), is a person who has a prescribed set of tasks to keep materials in stock at the point of use in production areas. (Note that the water spider is alternately called a water strider.)
This differs from a material handler in that the sequence of operations and the way the tasks are performed are specified.
A water spider’s purpose is to handle the replenishment tasks so that the production personnel can focus on the value-added tasks that create products.
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