Just-in-Time

Just-in-time (JIT) is a means of market pull inventory management imbeded within a humanistic environment of continuing improvement. Use of just-in-time methods results in considerably reduced inventory and enhanced customer response. However, to be successful, it requires a systemic and highly cooperative approach to inventory receipt, throughput, and delivery.

Although JIT was developed for production environments, there seems to be no reason why the concept cannot be extended to all business environments. The basic concept is to receive what is needed just in time for it to be used. This placed the responsibility on the supplier to get what is needed to where it is needed, just before the time it is needed.

My understanding is that there are two prerequisites for JIT to work effectively. First, it must be imbeded within a quality first culture. Second, the process must run at peak effectiveness. In the production environment, total productive maintenance meets this criteria.

Surfing the Web

DFT

Innovative Just-in-Time Enhancement

Inventory Management and Just-in-Time Systems

Just-In-Time Subcontracting

Just-In-Time Under Fire

Bibliographies

Just-in-Time Bibliography