Just in Time is one of the core philosophies and drivers in Lean. It involves changing the production process, so that you produce the right amount of product ‘just in time’ for the customer’s needs. It involves high efficiency, low waste and well coordinated production processes.
Why use Just In Time?
When not to use Just In Time?
Just in time involves changing from a traditional ‘push’ production method, where your production line pushes out stock at a consistent rate into a finished goods warehouse, where your customer then can buy what they need, in a ‘supermarket’ type method. It moves to ‘pull’, where customer demands mean that just the right amount is produced at just the right time, and no permanent finished goods stock is required, reducing inventory waste.
It uses the ‘kanban’ system to make this happen, and also requires there to be very little if any waste.