DOES JIT – “JUST IN TIME” STILL WORK FOR FACTORIES?
DOES JIT – “JUST IN TIME” STILL WORK FOR FACTORIES?
There was a time, “Lean Just-in-time” is a standard in factories to keep stock or inventory of materials at a minimum level to save cost to the whole supply chain. However, two years passed with the darkness of Covid-19, and this model seems not suitable anymore when the chain was suddenly broken. Factories now tend to reserve a certain inventory to be safe, for “Just-in-case” or JIC of need.
This new model of JIC seems to be widely acknowledged worldwide, and supported by many 3PLs like Voltrans Logistics or 4PLs as in the long run the JIT could not protect factories from risks of interruptions in the supply chain. This may cause some cost for inventory but keeping a reasonable amount could prevent factories from sudden stuck like in the pandemic last two years. Besides, they are also some other alternatives like a few more vendor policies instead of focusing only on a sole source, like China regardless of the cheap sourcing.
In the future, there could be more models coming out to suit the needs of all factories with variant demands. Difficulties create more solutions.
By Thomas