Just in Time

Introduction:

In today’s business environment, the battleground is changing from high volume, low variety, make to forecast manufacture to the speed and flexibility necessary to respond to changing consumer tastes and to competitor activity. High quality products and services, lower cost and shorter delivery lead time are the deciding factors to obtain new business or new order. A flexible production system such as Just in time must be in place in order to meet these requirements and stay competitive in the business. Table 1 and Table 2 shown below explain how Just in time can provide different forms of competitive advantage and how Just in time can support the company strategies.

Table 1: Just in time and competitive advantage (Alan Harrison, 1992)

WIP reduction Lower cost manufacture

Reduced order to delivery lead time

Increased flexibility Responsive to customer demands,

volume, short lead time, product change.

Raw material reduction Lower cost manufacture

Increased quality Higher quality products

Lower cost manufacture

Increased productivity Lower cost manufacture

Reduced space requirements Lower cost manufacture

Lower Overheads Lower cost manufacture

Table 2: Company strategies and JIT (Alan Harrison, 1992)

Rapid response to customer needs Flexibility

WIP reduction

Compete on quality Increased quality

Compete on price WIP reduction

Raw material reduction

Increased productivity

Reduced space requirements

Lower overheads

Rapid product change Flexibility

There are three basic elements to support Just in time production system.

1) Elimination of waste

2) Total Quality

3) People preparation

The