Just-In-Time (JIT) Production:
JIT is “a manufacturing philosophy based on planned elimination of all waste and continuous productivity improvement.”It has also been referred to as a method of producing “just in time” components at the appropriate time and location. Waste is the outcome of any activity that increases costs without providing value, such as the needless movement of materials, the buildup of surplus inventory, or the use of subpar production techniques that result in goods that need to be reworked later. By reducing inventory levels (raising inventory turnover rate), lowering variability, and enhancing product quality, JIT (lean production or stockless production) should increase earnings and return on investment.
Decreasing additional costs (such as those related to machine setup and equipment breakdown), as well as the lead periods for production and delivery. To guard against potential issues, a JIT system uses underutilized (extra) capacity rather than buffer inventories.
JIT is most commonly used in manufacturing operations that involve repetitive production of the same goods and parts. The fundamental idea is to establish flow processes by connecting work centers to provide an even, balanced flow of materials throughout the whole production process, similar to that found in an assembly line (even when the facility uses a jobbing or batch process arrangement). To do this, an effort is made to push all inventory buffers toward zero and obtain the ideal lot size of one unit.
Toyota developed the essential elements of JIT in the 1950s and became known as the Toyota Production System (TPS). By the beginning of the 1970s, JIT was well-established in many Japanese firms. General Electric was a pioneer in the adoption of JIT in the 1980s in the United States, and today the JIT/lean ideas are widely applied and recognized.