Just In Time Essay

Just-In-Time or J-I-T is defined in the APICS dictionary as â€Å"a philosophy of manufacturing based on planned elimination of all waste and on continuous improvement of productivity. † To put it simply, it means products are produced in the necessary quantities at the necessary time, basically, everything happens just in time. It promises to provide a tailored solution for business matching none of the off-the-shelf software available in the market. It believes that it must adapt to its customers not the other way around. It takes its name from the idea of replenishing material buffers just when they are needed. Also known as lean production or stockless production, it seeks to improve profits and ROI by the reduction of inventory levels, by increasing inventory turnover rate, by the reduction of variability, by the improvement of product quality, by the reduction of production and delivery lead times and by the reduction of other costs like those that are associated with machine set up and equipment breakdown. It applies to repetitive manufacturing processes where it involves the same products and components being produced over and over again. J-I-T, a recognized philosophy, technique or way of working takes its root in Japan. Developed by the Toyota Motor Company in the mid-1970’s, it was originally known as Toyota Production System (TPS). Toyota’s Taiichi Ohno is after all the credited father of this way or working. He developed a system of production based on waste elimination. Waste, according to Ohno includes time and resources as well as materials. Just-in-time and autonomation were then born. The former means that items move through production as and when they are needed; and the latter means that production system must be automated to include inspection, where human attention was only called for when a defect was detected automatically, signaling a temporary stop in the system until the problem has been solved. J-I-T believes that waste and its many forms must be eliminated. These wastes can be in the form of materials, space and labor. Problems that may lead to the production of such wastes are paid close attention to. There has been a constant improvement on operation and procedures to finely tune them in to an increase in productivity. Ordering or holding costs can be reduced. And there must also be a continuous effort to strive to improve. This means an improvement on processes and systems to an efficient and competitive one. Moreover, a certain respect among the workers must be maintained. It assumes a stable environment and requires an active participation among the employees, the basics of industrial engineering, continuous improvement, small lot sizes and total quality control. Stock or inventory, overproduction, time spent waiting, transportation or movement, processing time as well as defects are considered to be unnecessary wastes. This techniques promises to render its users the benefits ranging from consistent high quality products, quality as a responsibility of every worker, uniform Master Production Schedule, standardization of components and work methods, product focus, preventive maintenance, reduced scrap, reduced re-work, reduced cycle times, lower set up time, smoother flow of production, less inventory, cost savings, higher productivity, more skilled and multi-tasking work force, reduced space requirements and improved relationships with suppliers and continuous improvement. Setting it apart from all the other traditional techniques applied which provides large amount of options available to its customers and accepts almost all orders, J-I-T targets a limited market in order to deliver high quality services at low cost. In terms of capacity, a traditional technique employs excess capacity designed into the system anticipating problems that may arise, they are highly utilized and are inflexible as opposed to that of J-I-T that minimizes waste of having extra capacity, and such is flexible and moderately utilized. In the traditional technique, there is a lot of space for inventory storage. Job shops are often converted to cellular manufacturing when J-I-T technique is employed. Traditional technique believes that long lead times allow more time to make decisions and get the job done. J-I-T on the other hand, believes that more accurate forecasting and planning can be done in short lead times. In terms of layout, a job shop in a traditional set up are spread-out to accommodate areas for stock rooms, tool cribs and work-in-the process inventories between the equipment. It even requires automated or semi-automated materials handling equipment in the form of conveyors and forklifts, another addition to an already big space requirement. In a J-I-T system, manual transfer is employed. Equipment is as close together to aid the handling over of parts from one worker or machine to the other. In terms of quality, in a traditional technique, goods are inspected at critical points and scrap rates are tracked. In the case of the J-I-T technique, workers themselves inspect parts to achieve the zero defects goal in the end. Toyota and its suppliers were alone in the use of the TPS for almost a decade. Not until the late 1970’s when other Japanese automobile manufacturers in the likes of Mazda, Honda and Nissan adopted the concept of J-I-T to continue to compete with arch rival Toyota. Then in the mid 1980’s US and European manufacturers like Chrysler, Ford and General Motors benchmarked the J-I-T philosophy. Other firms such as CM, Ford, Bendix, Harley-Davidson, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T and others have been strongly advocating J-I-T. There have been progresses in regaining competitiveness. Many firms are once again at if not near world class status. But J-I-T is not a revolution but an evolution. Not all accounts will be success stories. Managers only implement J-I-T when they are convinced that it can enhance the firm’s performance. This is true even though there have been a lot of testaments to the benefits that it claims to deliver to its clients. There have been studies that show that the implementation and maintenance of the J-I-T manufacturing systems will eventually reap rewards as measured by improved financial performance. J-I-T is not the end of an evolution- it actually is just the beginning. There will be new J-I-T generations to be born in the years to come. We all have to then learn how to embrace changes in order to improve and gain control of our growing enterprises. We can always take a pick amongst the ones available. The choice is ours to make. References Donath, Bob. Reduced warehouse storage/inventory costs. The IOMA Handbook of Logistics and Inventory Management, p. 310. Retrieved November 21, 2007 from http://books.google.com/books?isbn=047120935x.