JIT Manufacturing Systems in Indian Industries: A Review.

Most of people understand JIT as a system of reducing inventory and quality control but they do not realize that it is a system of highlighting the problems, and forcing the organization to find quick solutions. It creates a problem solving organization. However, there is no standard to implement the ‘JIT’ other than continuous progress towards the ultimate objective of delivery as wanted with a smoothly synchronized continuous flow keyed to final demand, with perfect quality of incoming goods. Therefore, its successful implementation is a serious issue. JIT imposes a different set of requirements on typical work culture. Therefore, work culture of a society plays critical role in successful implementation of this approach. Researchers and managers of different countries think in different way according to their social and cultural principles. Its implementation in India may differ from the western countries. Therefore, it is important to focus on that JIT attributes which have high degree of importance in Indian context. This study investigates JIT implementation practices and performance in manufacturing organizations in the India. For this, literature related to JIT usage and performance is reviewed. A literature classification scheme is suggested in this paper for surveyed literature considering thirty-seven JIT attributes. To aid this classification, thirty-seven identified attributes of JIT production system are classified into five main categories. The frequency of citation of an attribute in the literature is assumed to be measure of its importance. Thus, relative importance of such attributes is also highlighted.