Advantages And Disadvantages Of Jit

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One of the major risks for the JIT strategy is when there is instability in the environment. For example, in the case of September 11, the airplane paralysation led to a major interruption of material transportation locally and internationally. Furthermore, the 2011 earthquake in Japan affected both the automobile and mobile industries. In such situations, stock-out costs can exceed carrying costs, which is the main foundation for a leaner inventory system. The question then arises; should companies continue to use JIT in the event of major uncontrollable environment occurrences?
According to Srinidhi and Tayi (2004), companies that are flexible enough and are able to change from a JIT system to a traditional inventory system will have a competitive advantage over other firms who do not switch. In such uncontrollable environments, the major benefit of JIT becomes a handicap with the increase in delivery times and the added data handling and coordination required in such times. This leads to a decrease in quick response time, which ultimately leads to increase in costs to the firm.
During hard economic times it may be possible for a firm to switch suppliers be it from domestic to international or vice-versa for some required materials. However, this might not be desirable for all materials. Another issue that often occurs is the delay in shipment with the transportation companies. This may require that certain parts be divided into smaller batches and shipped separately, which would increase the lead time and shipping costs.
A perceptive company with an ‘agile’ system can rapidly identify an alteration in the environment and gather useful information to quickly respond and avoid a major internal impact. This agility to quickly r...

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... 2005 are not all that rare. Other issues of political nature create a large amount of uncertainty in supply chains around the world. Therefore, companies need to be aware of this and reduce their risk by maintaining relationships with alternate suppliers.
Another effective way to reduce risk is for companies to purchase business-interruption insurance. This type of insurance used to be generally easy to obtain. Today, insurance companies require a lot more information before providing the service to companies. Not only do they require more information on a company's suppliers, the insurers also require that you have a list of multiple suppliers that, if an isolated disaster or accident occurs, wouldn’t all be affected. Companies need to maintain their JIT processes, eliminate redundancies, and at the same time keep a minimum number of suppliers to minimize risks.

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