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A behavioral case study of Just‐in‐Time implementation
Author(s) -
Safayeni Frank,
Purdy Lyn
Publication year - 1991
Publication title -
journal of operations management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.649
H-Index - 191
eISSN - 1873-1317
pISSN - 0272-6963
DOI - 10.1016/0272-6963(91)90023-q
Subject(s) - interdependence , product (mathematics) , perception , business , operations management , computer science , process management , marketing , psychology , mathematics , economics , sociology , social science , geometry , neuroscience
A behavioral study of the just‐in‐time (JIT) situation in the circuit pack area of an electronics firm was carried out. The primary focus of the study was to examine how workers perceived JIT in their work area. A total of twelve people were interviewed—eight operators and four supervisors. The results of the study indicated that there had been many positive accomplishments, including the overall positive perception of the participants about JIT. There were, also, problems with the JIT situation, often related to the environment of the circuit pack area. Specifically, participants perceived the performance evaluation system as the most significant problem with JIT; it systematically caused a state of “push” instead of “pull.” Uncooperativeness of operators was noted by the operators themselves as a problem within the circuit pack area. It is concluded that JIT manufacturing increases the need to effectively handle problems in the organization's environment as well as within the sub‐area itself due to the lower levels of inventory. This reduction of inventory increases the interdependence of activities in the organization, thereby necessitating an efficient and effective problem‐handling capability. A discussion of why large functional organizations are less appropriate than smaller product organizations as a JIT environment is presented (e.g., effective problem handling requires increased coordination in the organizational structure, which is usually absent in large functionally designed organizations). To overcome this limitation, an organizational team approach is proposed as a temporary means of dealing with the increased interdependencies.