Section: 202 Date: December 22, 2012 Done by: Hadeel Al-Dossary

Toyota Company first developed JIT philosophy with an aim of eliminating waste and improving productivity. The idea focused on producing the right items, in the right quantities and within the right time. Since then, the JIT manufacturing systems have come up with varied techniques that support the main philosophy under different titles like Toyota Production System, Lean Production, Zero Inventory, and World Class Manufacturing. According to a research paper by Sukumar Mitra on implementation of JIT in steel industries of Bangladesh, he found that culture is the most crucial element to the successful implementation of the JIT in Japanese companies. A change in corporate culture has been the main platform for successful implementation of JIT. Research indicates that workers in Japan are cooperative, loyal, flexible and willing to work for long hours whenever a need arises. The management culture in Japan has an aspect of lifetime employment, with a bottom-up decision-making approach as well as a respect for their workers. This distinctive nature of workers and managers has enabled the companies implement JIT successfully (Sukumar).

JIT philosophy aims at elimination of waste by removing non-value added activities in purchasing, manufacturing, distribution as well as support services within the process. It is a demand-pull system where production occurs on receipt of orders from customers and only in the specific orders as the customers’ requests. The production occurs therefore in a repetitive manner in small batches that involve practices of preventive maintenance, continuous flow, small lot sizes and kanban. Therefore, the plant requires reorganization in order to have raw materials’ delivery occurring before their entry into the production process.

The JIT manufacturing system is made of these building blocks as Sukumar Mitra indentified in his research. This includes; commitment of the company, right materials and timely materials, strong supplier partnerships, long-term contracts as well as quality personnel. There must be top managerial support and staff commitment with enough financial support and proper planning to make JIT a success. The system should begin in purchasing that then supports the manufacturing. The purchasing involves buying small quantities of materials from few trusted suppliers and delivery made just before their usage begins. Few and trusted suppliers benefits the firm both in costs and time saving. Delivery of small batches enables a firm to save of storage costs, which result from holding of large inventories. The saved costs can be applied in other organizational areas like personnel to improve the overall success and productivity (Sukumar).

Many companies recognized that using just in time help to reduce cost and develop the performance of the company, it’s found that JIT approach allow many organization to compete successfully with others organization in the market. In addition JIT technology help to achieve organization goals because of continues reduction of waste and devilment of productivity.(A.L.Guta,2000)

The researcher found that just in time (JIT) is nonstop development to remove the activity that is not beneficial for the origination, to minimize the cost and develop the quality and performance, also improve the manufacturing flexibility and delivery process .(A.L.Guta,2000)

Researcher has reported some dynamic for the JIT implementation. Suitable and trained employee and proper top management are very important for successful JIT implementation. According to Vickery it's noted that logistical planning system is very important for JIT implantation (Vickery, 2010). Also Prased and Lee support training for employees and managers as well as production processes, this will lead to success in JIT.( Prased,2010)

Francis report for smooth operation its significant to have accurate information and forecasting demand. (Francis, 2010). Stressed the important of making strong relationship with seller. Gunasekaran and Lyu examine the just in time implementation in a small organization in Taiwan this company manufacture many kind of automobile lamps. Non-stop improvement, improvement of all employees in the organization, minimize the time and cost and simplify curial activities in JIT implementation, which organization emphasize.( Gunasekaran &Lyu,2010).

The organization establishes that with JIT technology, organization could survive with low production cost and high performance. Trained the workers and mangers about JIT system will help to guarantee the success and effectiveness of the just in time concept. Deshpande & Golhar analyze human resource in JIT Company in Canada by using un experimental study. The ability of employee to work in group effectively its extremely significant factors in some JIT firm. (Deshpande & Golhar,2012).

Without trained and qualify employees it will be hard to have a continues improvement . JIT system require to upgrade the workers skills, consequently, training program is very important to increase, also group motivation, teamwork and communication should increase too. JIT firm try to give effort to workers by training, this will provide better work environment. Improving in the performance of products and production, is important like the important in decreasing the inventory, time, worker cost. This activities will help the JIT firm to effectively competing in the global market. Changing the production scheduling is the main problem that JIT faced in the implementation process. JIT does not limit to use a high technology production environment, the firm use high and modern technology to ease the manufacturing system.

JIT concepts is valid in every level of technology software and hardware, the concepts don’t limit any certain kind of business or limit the size of organization. Many studies reported in the developing countries like India to expand the base just in time activities in India. JIT is very helpful in developing the quality of service area.

JIT Performance and Application

Successful implementation of the JIT leads to improvement in both financial and non-financial performances like lower production costs, higher productivity, and improved quality of products as well as timely delivery of the products to the end customers, which have an eventual increase in the firm’s profitability, as learned in chapter two we saw how effect operations lead to reduced costs, similarly JIT is a form of effective operations management. Some arguments hold that JIT leads to improved operations and not productivity especially in the short run and therefore, companies should emphasize on stability, long-term reliability and growth. Companies need to focus on non-financial measures like quality, inventory management, innovation, productivity and employees. To gain competitive advantage in the market, companies should ensure quality in production as well as strict specifications to meet the customer needs. According to Sukumar Mitra in his research work, Balance Scorecard discusses both financial and non-financial performance measurements. The scorecard indicates that extreme reliance on financial measures in management is insufficient. The argument is that too much reliance on financial indicators makes managers to focus on short-term performance strategy at the expense of developing opportunities in evaluating and developing long-term value creation (Sukumar).