Just-in-Time (JIT)" Please respond to the following:
- Develop three (3) examples that illustrate how a manufacturing company or a service company of your choice uses JIT, and then determine three to four (3-4) benefits of JIT for that particular organization. Discuss how the JIT concept differs between manufacturing and service companies. Provide specific examples to support your rationale.
Companies that use JIT are the most successful ones in the world. JIT (Just in Time Manufacturing) is a proven system to produce products efficiently while keeping the costs low. The company that I have chosen is McDonalds Fast Food. McDonalds uses just-in time inventory to serve their customers on a daily basis throughout the entire day (breakfast, lunch and dinner). When a customer orders their meal whether it be a burger, salad, shake, or cookies; McDonalds makes the food when it is ordered. This will help keep their product fresh and the consumer happy. McDonalds is a franchise and with just in time inventory the company can be more efficient and competitive in the way they handled their supply chains and use their parts to assemble for their products. A more efficient supply chain will lower the cost throughout the manufacturing process, and that will help keep prices low for the consumer.
Storing excess inventory can also hurt the company financially. Reducing the amount of inventory the store keeps on hand will reduce the carrying cost as well. That can also help reduce the number of warehouses they have to maintain. This will tie into less waste for the company as well. When companies use traditional methods for inventory there seems to be lot more product that ends up being a waste and therefor loses the company money. If a company does have excess material they try and make the product as a special just to move it out of inventory; the company then loses out on money because that product was marked down. The company has to make sure that they are ordering what the consumer wants to move the product faster from inventory.
McDonalds in the past would pre heat their product (hamburger patties) and keep them under a heat lamp. If the patties weren't being sold fast enough then the patties would be thrown away in the trash, therefore the product couldn't be sold and the company loses money. Now that McDonalds has the just in time process they make the food when it is ordered to reduce the company from throwing away excess patties that were cooked. This helps with raising quality and lowering costs.
https://www.inventorymanagementreview.org/2005/11/mcdonalds_a_gui.html
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/advantages-justintime-inventory-systems-20997.html
https://smallbusiness.chron.com/examples-justintime-inventory-11970.html
Fast-Food Restaurants
Fast-food restaurants use just-in-time inventory to serve their customers on a daily basis during breakfast, lunch and dinner. Fast food restaurants have cheese, burger patties and all the fixings and toppings on hand, but they don't start assembling and cooking their hamburgers, sundaes or fish sandwiches until a customer places an order.
Jeffrey, Rochelle, Souad, and Professor Phyllis Parise,
Going back to Apple and correcting consumers on their products and mispronouncing products and services it all ties back to customer services and how that specific representative comes across. In some ways it might come off as sarcastic and might have a negative impact on the customer or it might seems informative and the customer is grateful that you corrected them. Working in the retail environment there are a lot of customers that come in not knowing a few things about their devices and might seem like an easy fix to the employee but not to the consumer. This is where customer experience is very important and how the employee approaches the customer. We at Verizon use like to relate to empathize or sympathize with the customer, "that's happened to me, or I did that too." Relating really eases the customer and correcting them isn't as sarcastic or negative. I found a couple websites about how customer experience has a huge impact in organizations.
https://www.sprinklr.com/the-way/big-list-customer-experience-statistics/
https://www.impactlearning.com/the-customer-experience/
Nicolas,
Great post this on JIT and relating it to Harley Davidson. What I really fond interesting was they cut back on inventory and consumers can customize their products. This for the company shows that they put time and quality into their product since their inventory is low and they make the product when the consumer orders it. And if they do not want to customize their product they can choose from a handpicked selection at their stores.