Total Quality Management (RME 085)

Unit-V

Just-in-Time (JIT)

Just-in-Time (JIT) was Originated in Japan during early 1970. Its introduction as a
recognised technique/philosophy/way of working was generally associated with
the Toyota motor company, JIT being initially known as the "Toyota Production
System". JIT is also known as stockless production or lean production

Within Toyota, Taiichi Ohno is most commonly credited as the father/originator

of this way of working. Ohno felt that such traditional methods would not work in
Japan - total domestic demand was low and the domestic marketplace demanded
production of small quantities of many different models. Accordingly Ohno
devised a new system of production based on the elimination of waste. In his
system waste was eliminated by:

 just-in-time - Items only move through the production system as and when
they are needed
 autonomation - Automating the production system so as to include
inspection - human attention only being needed when a defect is
automatically detected whereupon the system will stop and not proceed
until the problem has been solved

In this system inventory (stock) is regarded as an unnecessary waste as too is

having to deal with defects. Ohno regarded waste as a general term including
time and resources as well as materials.

He identified a number of sources of waste that he felt should be eliminated:

 overproduction - waste from producing more than is needed

 time spent waiting - waste such as that associated with a worker being idle
whilst waiting for another worker to pass him an item he needs (e.g. such
as may occur in a sequential line production process)
  transportation/movement - waste such as that associated with
transporting/moving items around a factory
 processing time - waste such as that associated with spending more time
than is necessary processing an item on a machine
 inventory - waste associated with keeping stocks
 defects - waste associated with defective items

JIT philosophy:

 Elimination of waste in its many forms

 Belief that ordering/holding costs can be reduced
 Continuous improvement, always striving to improve

Push v/s Pull system:

The traditional approach to manufacturing management promotes a strong

focus on machine and labor utilization. The view was that if managers make sure
that workers and machines are always busy, then surely the factory will be
productive and efficient. This approach is called the “push” system of
manufacturing, where raw material and work-in-process is continuously pushed
through the factory in the pursuit of high utilization. The problem with this
approach is that it usually produces high levels of inventories, long lead times,
overtime costs, high levels of potential rework, and workers who are competing
with one another rather than working cooperatively.

In contrast to the push system, JIT espouses a “demand-pull” system that

operates on the rule that work should flow to a work center only if that work
center needs more work. If a work center is already occupied with work activity,
the upstream work center should stop production until the downstream work
center communicates a need for more material. The emphasis on maintaining
high utilization is removed in a JIT environment. The focus of a JIT environment is
on addressing the challenges that affect the overall effectiveness of the factory
(setup time reduction, quality improvement, enhanced production techniques,
waste elimination, etc.) in meeting its strategic goals, rather than allowing excess
inventory to cover up inefficiencies that reduce the factory’s competitiveness.
Objectives of JIT:

The objectives of JIT are achieved through several physical systems or projects.
Some of JIT objectives are as follows:

 To reduce the set-up times and lot sizes.

 To achieve ‘zero defects’ goal in manufacturing.
 To focus on continuous improvement.
 To concentrate on involving workers and using their knowledge to a greater
extent.
 Layout of equipments in such a way so as to minimizes both travel distances
and inventories between the machines.
 To reduce inventories and thus economize on inventory carrying costs.
 To eliminate waste (such as long set-up times, zig-zag material flow, scrap,
machine breakdown, higher stocks, rework, inspection etc.).
 To identify any problem related to waste and solve that through total
employees involvement.
 To eliminate all non- value adding activities by systematically identifying
these.
 To cross –train the workers in multi-functions to maintain and enable them
to run several machines at a time.

Elements of JIT:

 regular meetings of the workforce (e.g. daily/weekly)

 discuss work practices, confront and solve problems
 an emphasis on consultation and cooperation (i.e. involving the workforce)
rather than confrontation
 modify machinery, e.g. to reduce setup time
 reduce buffer stock
 expose problems, rather than have them covered up
 reveal bad practices
 take away the "security blanket" of stock
JIT need not be applied to all stages of the process. For example we could keep
large stocks of raw material but operate our production process internally in a JIT
fashion (hence eliminating work-in-progress stocks).

CASE STUDY: General Motors

An example of the use of JIT in General Motors is given below.

General Motors (GM) in the USA has (approximately) 1700 suppliers who ship to
31 assembly plants scattered throughout the continental USA. These shipments
total about 30 million metric tons per day and GM spends about 1,000 million
dollars a year in transport costs on these shipments (1990 figures).

JIT implies frequent, small, shipments. When GM moved to JIT there were simply
too many (lightly loaded) trucks attempting to deliver to each assembly plant.
GM's solution to this problem was to introduce consolidation centres at which full
truckloads were consolidated from supplier deliveries.

This obviously involved deciding how many consolidation centres to have, where
they should be, their size (capacity) and which suppliers should ship to which
consolidation centres (suppliers can also still ship direct to assembly plants).

As of 1990 some 20% by weight of shipments go through consolidation centres

and about 98% of suppliers ship at least one item through a consolidation centre.

All this has been achieved without sacrificing the benefits of JIT.