Implementation and Sustainability of Just in Time Production System from a Cultural & Psychological Standpoint

IMPLEMENTATION AND SUSTAINABILITY OF JUST IN TIME PRODUCTION SYSTEM FROM A CULTURAL & PSYCHOLOGICAL STANDPOINT

GOWRI PRASHANTH SALEM MOHAN – FX2727

VARSHA VISWANATH KASTHURI – FY0654

VIGNESH JANARDHANAN - FY4547

INDUSTRIAL AND SYSTEMS ENGINEERING – WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY

ABSTRACT

                Just-in-time (JIT) is one of the manufacturing concepts that has high attraction throughout the world, predominantly on the credibility and success of Japanese industries. JIT in simple terms means producing right product at the right time in right quality and quantity. In the present industrial environment, Manufacturing as well as Supply Chain and Logistics are progressing towards globalization and the cultural influence on any manufacturing setup is strongly felt. In this paper, we attempt to understand the implementation & sustainability of JIT from cultural and psychological standpoint. We intent to study the personal values, employee mindset, business traits, language, human- nature and human-time interactions that put forth challenges and opportunities of implementation and sustenance of JIT.

INTRODUCTION

During and after Second World War, the industrial development and mass production strategies were largely developed in America. American manufacturers made use of production concepts like Economic Order Quantity (EOQ) where lot size and batch size were optimized to balance the inventory holding cost and ordering cost while authoritatively mandating production of a single product prior to switch over. American manufacturers had the luxury of high demand and wide spread market which allowed them to practice the EOQ models. The economic situation in Japan on the other hand had low domestic demand and had high variety. This economic situation along with the cultural mindset of Japanese to rise after the Second World War, instigated to look into new perspectives and Toyota’s Taiichi Ohno devised a new system based on the concepts of Waste elimination and Just in time production.

As the global competitiveness was increasing, the companies around the world both developed and developing countries were surmounted with the task of increasing the operational efficiency. JIT style manufacturing concepts developed by Japanese automakers were attractive to most of the manufacturers since they mainly focus on Inventory reduction, waste elimination, high Return on Investment (ROI) and high productivity. These benefits encouraged JIT to enter into US, United Kingdom etc in early 1980s and progressed in accelerated rate. The developing countries such as India, Brazil, and Malaysia etc took up JIT concepts in late 1990’s and mostly in 21st Century. The manufacturers during the implementation majorly concentrated on technicalities of the concepts while the human aspects and cultural aspects were initially not considered. The implementation of JIT faced lot of challenges and failures in many of the countries. Insightful studies on these failures, brought the importance of the human factors - employee motivation, respect, value and contribution as the bedrocks of JIT concepts.  Japanese companies and its workers had imbibed these values through their culture. When the rest of the world attempted to replicate the JIT, they faced new challenges and problems arising from the employees and supplier relationship.  The perception of quality, time and accuracy varies from country to country. The difference in culture, geography, economic, education, training and value-based motivation and technology in those countries also play a vital role in implementation of JIT.