Hello English litters（垃圾）, welcome back（在后） to EnglishPod. My name is Marco. And I'm Erika. And we're bringing you a very advanced（先进的） lesson today. That's right. We're talking about another business topic, aren't we?

  It's a topic that's kind（种类） of popular these days, all about efficiency（效率） and reducing costs. So we're going to be talking about the just-in-time philosophy（哲学）. I don't know much about this philosophy, so good thing we've got Marco here. Well, what we are going to be looking at is not really in-depth（[海洋] 深度）. We're just going to be looking at some basic（基本的） points of what a just-in-time philosophy（哲学） would be like in a company. 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 technical（技术的） terms, some and some other useful phrases that you can use when you're talking in a business setting（安装）. Okay（好）. Well, why don't we get started with the language then? Okay, let's take a look at vocabulary preview. Vocabulary preview.

  In vocabulary preview today, we have the word lead time. Lead（带头的） time. Lead time. L-E-A-D, lead. Lead time. Right.

  Like（喜欢） lead（带头的）. This is something that factories usually would use. Yeah. Yeah. I guess lead time is the time in between point A and point B on a production（生产） schedule, right? Right.

  So you could have, for example, production lead time. So that's the time between when you make an order and when the product is finished. Exactly. And you could also have delivery（投递） lead time. So the time between when you place（放置） an order and when the product gets delivered（投递） to you. So depending on the companies, you have different lead times.

  Some are three days, other are five days, other are 45 days. And we at EnglishPod have a two-week lead time for our podcast, right? But our delivery lead time is every other day. That's true. 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 tricky（ 狡猾的） vocabulary words that we'll see.

  I called this meeting today in order to discuss our manufacturing（制造业） plan. As I'm sure you're all aware（知道的）, with the credit crunch（嘎吱嘎吱地响(声)） and the global（全球的） financial（财政的） crisis, we're obligated（使负义务） to look for more cost-efficient（效率高的） ways of producing our goods（好处）. We don't want to have to be looking at redundancies（冗余）. So we've outlined（概述） a brief（简短的） plan to implement（实施） the just-in-time philosophy（哲学）. 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 walked on. Well, we want to reduce production and delivery lead times for better overall（全面的） efficiency（效率）. Right. Production lead times can be reduced by moving workstations closer（近地） together, reducing queue（行列） length（长度） like（喜欢）, for example, reducing the number of jobs waiting to be processed（加工） at a given（做） machine, and improving the coordination（协调） and cooperation（合作） between successive（连续的） processes. Delivery lead times can be reduced through close cooperation with suppliers（供应商）, possibly（可能地） by inducing（劝诱） suppliers（供应商） to locate closer（近地） to the factory or working with a faster shipping company.

  I see. That makes sense. The second point is that we want to require（需要） supplier（供应商） quality assurance（确信） and implement（实施） a zero defects quality program. We currently（当前） have far too many errors that lead to defective items, and therefore（因此）, they must be eliminated（排除）. A quality control at the source program must be implemented to give workers personal responsibility（ 责任） for the quality of the work they do and the authority（当局） to stop production（生产） when something goes wrong. I'm with you on this one.

  It's essential（必要的） that we reduce these errors. We've got to force（促使） our suppliers（供应商） to reduce their mistakes. Exactly. Well, let's look at how we're going to put this plan into action. First. Okay, so they're going to implement just in time in their company.

  Yes. Yeah, I guess they're putting in some cost control measures（分量）. Marco, there's some great language in here. Why don't we look at it now in Language Takeaway（外卖食品）. Language Takeaway. Okay, the first word today, redundancies.