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Unit 4 DB
JIT
JIT is an organizational philosophy that goes beyond manufacturing and encompasses all aspects of the organization's functioning. Also it introduces a culture of continuous improvement. These characteristics make it a potent management tool. Today some of the crucial problems that are being faced in the Mexico plant are disruptions in the production process due to irregular supplies from vendors and because of the inability to maintain a continuous flow of material through the various production stages; inability to adapt to the flexible nature of demand; and as a result of these, having to keep high levels of raw material, in-process and finished goods inventory. These are the issues that JIT addresses and hence JIT could be the solution for the plant's problems.
The JIT application is spread over four building blocks and the relevance of these to the company's situation is being discussed below. The first block deals with improvements in product design. The division has 4000 parts in its catalogue. These parts have been introduced over the years as and when required and have been designed independently of the company's other products. There is a need to take a fresh look at the designs, incorporating standards parts and modular design. This should involve concurrent engineering in which the operations personnel will form a team not only with the procurement and marketing personnel but with the vendors and customers as well. The second block, process design, is the most critical. The demand of finished products has a significant randomness and this is creating a hurdle in smooth and stable processes. The processes need to be made more flexible an ...