What is JIT – Just In Time approach?

Introduction
JIT can be defined as a philosophy which came into existence in the early 1970’s and for the first time it was developed in Toyota manufacturing plants under Taiichi Ohno. So it can be said that JIT is a Japanese philosophy.

According to Taiichi Ohno, waste is anything other than minimum amount of equipment, materials, parts and working time absolutely essential for the production. So waste can be defined as anything that provides no value to the operation,here JIT plays a very crucial and essential role.

JIT helps in eliminating or at least minimizing the various wasteful activities like moving work around, loading,unloading, carrying, storing, stocking etc. and hence allows the employees and the whole organization to keep a look on and concentrate on the various activities that provide value to the company.

As the name suggests, Just in time refers to producing and then delivering the products after finishing, just in time for selling and also making sub assemblies at just the right time to be assembled into the finished goods.JIT is a philosophy but not at all a technique as it completely supports the thinking, working and also the managing process in order to minimize the waste. With the help of JIT one can not only lessen down the inventory but can also help in solving problems that act as a hindrance in the smooth working of a company.

JIT Purchasing
JIT purchasing refers to the technique of eliminating waste during the purchasing phase with the help of the mutual understanding with good suppliers. The major elements of JIT purchasing include locating, choosing and then developing mutual relations with the suppliers the number of the suppliers should be limited and both the buyer and the supplier should possess mutual dependence, having long term contracts which results in reduction of the lead time, aiming at finding solutions to the problems by involving participation of the supplier at an earlier stage during the decision making process.

JIT purchasing is more applicable and helpful in the flow production than the batch production and is also not very suitable for the low cost ‘C’ class bought out items. JIT cannot work properly in those organizations, where there is no proper involvement of the people.

JIT purchasing aims at the following –
1. Elimination of the waste or at least minimization of the waste during the purchase process.
2. Elimination of the waste at the supplier’s end.
3. Elimination of the purchased inventory.

JIT Manufacturing
JIT manufacturing refers to the technique of eliminating waste during the manufacturing process. During the production of the products one important factor to be kept in mind is to fulfill or to meet the customer’s requirement in context of the quality. JIT manufacturing aims at eliminating all those factors or activities that act as a hindrance in the achievement of such goals of quality maintenance.

Key factors in the working of the JIT manufacturing
1. Trying to improve quality automatically results in the minimization of the costs.
2. Considers employees as the experts in their work.
3. Mistakes act as an opportunity to improve.
4. JIT prefers working in small batches.

Cellular Manufacturing
In this case, JIT manufacturing works as small autonomous modules or cells, which are designed in such a way that flow of materials is minimized within the cells and also between the cells. Cell may consist of a single machine or more than one machine arranged in a line and it must allow one at a time flow by possessing flexibility of being operated at the rate required by the operation or the customer it is supposed to feed.

In a JIT work cell, the operator who is in motion, is responsible for picking up the material and then performing the operation at the first machine. Then moves to the next machine, performing the next operation and in this way it reaches the last machine, when the unit is put into the completed container. In this case, the total time spent at all machine is equal to the desired cycle time. For achieving higher rate of production more number of men is assigned to the work cell and if the lower rate of production is needed in the next period less number of workmen are assigned to the work cell then. Cellular manufacturing helps in reducing cost of quality of works made parts and also the manufacturing lead time. By cellular manufacturing, work in process inventory is lowered, accompanied by lowering of labour work content.