Verbete: Just in Time

            Just in time is a capitalist administrative system that defines a group of basic concepts and techniques turned to the improvement of the global performance of productive systems. It was created in Japan by Toyota, based on the idea of producing only the necessary, i.e., a determined amount of products for the market.

            This system focus on income, profits and costs reduction. As a result of the adoption of this model, there is a minimization of the stocks and less waste of time, the integration and the optimization of the whole process.

This expression is related to others as “economies of scope”, “toyotism”, “Toyota model of production”, “clean production”.

            Used in other contexts, like in computers sciences, Just In Time refers to a resource offered in Developing Environments.This resource translates, in real time, a high level developing languages, like Java or C#, to machine language, which is understood by the computer. In the industrial context, the use of this expression implies the production of specific demand, when the purchase of an amount of raw material is limited by the received order, with no excess production.

            The JIT system is found in many places, such as fast-foods chains, where the processes are sequential and the amount of wasted products is reduced, and the services are faster.

            We can also cite the huge fashion trademarks, whose production of items and accessories is limited by the year season and their costumers demand.

Volkswagen's car storage. Cars waiting to be sold.

From: http://nxtbot.com/blog/2006/05/16/the-robot-car-retriever/