[somat]

The fundamental idea behind Kanban is backpressure signaling for logistics.

If I understand it correctly it moves the signaling in-band so it can be handled at a locally distributed level, that is, each local parts consuming system is responsible for directly signaling it's upstream supplier to provide more parts and this is done by putting the signals on the parts bins or making the parts bins themself the signals.

I guess there is also that weird software logistics thing that appropriated the kanban term but because software logistics is very different from manufacturing logistics has little to do with actual kanban. shrugs. It's probably still a backpressure signaling thing however.