Just-in-Time: Concepts and Applications

Just-in-Time (JIT) is a management philosophy catering to the needs of global consumerism. By definition, JIT is an inventory strategy with the principal objective of reducing in-process inventory and eliminating waste and associated costs through different operational activities. Historically, JIT was implemented in a manufacturing organization. However, implementation of JIT entails a number of problems like leaving the suppliers and downstream consumers susceptible to supply shocks, loopholes in creating a flexible manufacturing system and workforce, and increasing costs to be borne by the suppliers. JIT is actually based on pull production system, thereby processing only on the customer’s request and working on the actual orders. Although development and implementation of JIT is a time-consuming and expensive process, it can improve the business performance immensely, at the same time boosting the employee morale and keeping the organization competitive. The present volume attempts to reflect the flavor of the JIT concept and its application. The first section touches upon the concept of JIT with subsequent articles on relation between cost and yield rate in a JIT production system, the requisites by an organization for the transition from a ‘not-so’ JIT company to a company implementing JIT operations. The section concludes with a brief critical review of JIT. The second section elucidates application of JIT in electronic industry, marketing, for OEM (Office Equipment Manufacturers), in autonomic middleware services, pedagogy and in earthquake recovery. It is believed that a browse of this volume shall enable the readers to break free from the common notion of application of JIT exclusively in the manufacturing sector.