Impact of just-in-time production towards global competitiveness through competency management

Beginning in the early 1980’s, a number of firms followed the pioneering efforts of Shigeo Shingo and Taichi Ohno and adopted Just-In-Time (JIT) manufacturing in an attempt to reshape their manufacturing environments (see Bragg, Duplaga, and Penlesky, 2005). JIT requires that a company has a few reliable suppliers and is believed to enhance productivity and build a leaner manufacturing system which minimizes inventories (Helo, 2004) and reduces which reduces risk and helps minimize the cost of manufacturing (Curry and Kennedy, 1999). The present work will analyze what have been the results throughout the supply chain, in terms of inventory management that utilize JIT systems. The results of this study should enable managers that have or are considering implementing or participating in a JIT inventory management system to become more effective.