‘Just in Time’ Philosophy Sticks With Manufacturers
Despite pandemic supply chain snarls, industrial CEOs aren’t about to drop the pursuit of greater efficiency in favor of a higher tolerance for slack.
True just-in-time manufacturing is limited to a fairly niche group, including Toyota.
Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg
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Just-in-time manufacturing has become a favorite punching bag during the pandemic supply chain crunch, with critics arguing manufacturers had become too obsessed with efficiency and left themselves too little slack to weather availability constraints or geopolitical disruptions. The terminology is handy because it’s easy for the casual observer to grasp in theory and conjures up images of parts magically appearing at precisely the right moment at all steps of the manufacturing process. In reality, few industrial companies have ever operated to that degree of perfectly coordinated efficiency — although they still aspire to the general idea, even after the lessons of the Covid logjams.