Meaning:
A manufacturing/delivery process where a minimum of goods are kept in stock.
Items are planned to arrive precisely at the time they are required for use
or despatch.
Background:
Just In Time, or JIT, was coined to name and describe a manufacturing
processes developed by Toyota in Japan in the 1950s and which spread to the
US and UK in the 1970s. Nevertheless, the credit for the initiative should go
to Henry Ford. He described essentially the same process, although it wasn't
then named, in his autobiography My Life and Work, 1922:
"We have found in buying materials that it is not worth while to buy for
other than immediate needs. We buy only enough to fit into the plan of
production, taking into consideration the state of transportation at the
time. If transportation were perfect and an even flow of materials could be
assured, it would not be necessary to carry any stock whatsoever. The
carloads of raw materials would arrive on schedule and in the planned order
and amounts, and go from the railway cars into production. That would save
a great deal of money, for it would give a very rapid turnover and thus
decrease the amount of money tied up in materials."
- www.phrases.org.uk
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JIT is exactly the philosophy by which my friend Bill tries to run his life.
Unaware of the term, he effortlessly embodies its spirit as he buys groceries
only for his planned meals of the day or at most those of the week. He loves and
hates Costco Wholesale and watches himself closely when he visits the store. It
must have been in his oriental genes that have survived thousands of years of
shortage and turmoil on an unforgiving land. Henry Ford might have articulated
his capitalist thinking, but Bill's heritage is much older.
