Pros and Cons of JIT and How it can be applied at Claire’s Antiques Just-In-Time Pros and Cons of JIT and How it can be applied at Claire’s Antiques

Introduction There is steep rise in customer’s base and unexpected due to spread of business on International platform. Global Competition is increasing as customer has various options of choosing the different company’s product. Just-in-time approach provides better business strategy to combat the challenge of meeting customer’s demand. Since customer has market’s reach to every corner of the world after arrival of internet technology, it puts extra pressure on the company to fulfill the increasing expectation of customer. Manufacturer has to optimize their production efficiency to respond faster to the fluctuation of market. It has added sudden pressure of minimizing the delivery time between supplier and manufacturer to put the right product at right time in market. Invention of Just-in-Time or JIT concept has given the sigh of relief to Business managers.

Pros of the JIT system It helps in minimizing the scrap material and control of wastage product. Significantly reduces the time of set up Eliminate the bottlenecks to increase the flow of goods Employee versatility is improved due to increased interaction with different department Optimization of Scheduling Relationship between customer and supplier is important to understanding the need of customer JIT utilizes various techniques of management principle to reduce the leakage in production and optimize the manufacturing process. Employees are trained for multi-tasking and multi-skill to be functional in changing circumstances. Equipments are also upgraded to handle various operations related to manufacturing. It improves the flow of requires parts for manufacturing. Supply chain management products provides better tools to govern the delivery of product between different chain-links with better efficiency in cost-effective manner. It assists in increasing the turnover of the firm.

Cons of the JIT system Dependency on the connecting links of Supply chain increases complexity. Right resource is not always easy to find. Forecast planner for handling the demand of product due to seasonal factors should be accurate to respond the market’s need in timely fashion. Supply chain networks becomes extremely complex as the number of links between supplier, manufacturer, distributor and retailers becomes humongous. It increases the communication gap to eliminate the constraints in optimization of supply chain operation. Troubleshooting becomes too expensive for removing even simple flaw in network activities. Labor disruption due to non-availability of resources affects the supply of parts in significant manner. Incorrect prediction of Demand Curve is detrimental in planning of purchase, production and customer service.

How JIT can be applied at Claire’s Antiques Right application of Supply-chain principles are essential to achieve the optimal balance between supply and demand. Material planning, Production scheduling, Transportation Scheduling, Distribution planning and Order fulfillment strategy is critical in implementation of JIT inventory system. Each stage of supply-chain network is important in handling basic operations of business buy, make, move, store and sell to provide best customer service. Different software products of company like i2 Technologies or Ariba Inc provides the inbuilt functionality to optimize the operation of each steps between supplier to retailers as well as customer’s response. Demand Manager, Forecast Planner, Retail Planner, MDM etc is few of the products in applying the business strategy to achieve the best time-to-market for better revenue and profitability.

References Konicki  , Steve .(2001) Importance of Just-In-Time Autos. Retrieved July 24, 2009, from http://www.informationweek.com/836/collaborate5_side.htm;jsessionid=Q44ILV4VZSEUYQSNDLOSKHSCJUNN2JVN Operations Management - Just In Time (JIT). (2007).Retrieved July 24, 2009, from http://www.themanager.org/Knowledgebase/Operations/JIT.htm