For three and a half decades, lean management drove the production and movement of goods. But now logistics and manufacturing employers are shifting to a new model. To maximize our leverage, workers should understand it.

Lean production, introduced in the 1980s from Japanese automakers, caught on in many US industries. It was a whole bundle of techniques to maximize profit, including ratcheting up workloads and pace to the point of breakdown, and inviting workers to brainstorm ways to increase their own exploitation.

A central component was “just-in-time” (JIT) delivery, so companies weren’t spending to make extras or store anything until it was needed. Even within a plant, parts and supplies would arrive exactly when, where, and in the quantities they had to. Manufacturing productivity in the United States increased about 4 percent a year until the Great Recession of 2008–2010.