Narrative 17-1
In recent years,Japanese companies such as Mitsubishi,NEC,Fujitsu,and Sony began turning to North America to manufacture Japanese products. While Sony,Panasonic,and other Japanese giants still excel at cranking out high-quality consumer electronics products-such as camcorders and TVs-by the millions,it's a different story in industries with short product cycles and factories that must build what customers order instead of churning out products in anticipation of demand. Japan's great strength-repetitive manufacturing-is becoming its greatest weakness. This production-on-demand form of management cannot depend on JIT. Instead,the North American companies rely on raw-in-process inventory,or RIP. RIP calls for keeping a reasonable quantity of varied raw materials or components on hand to meet changing customer demand.
-Refer to Narrative 17-1. What is the unique characteristic of the JIT system?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

JIT, or just-in-time, is a production strategy that focuses on making parts available at the plant as needed, rather than maintaining a large inventory of parts. This is different from RIP, or raw-in-process inventory, which calls for keeping a reasonable quantity of varied raw materials or components on hand to meet changing customer demand. Therefore, the unique characteristic of the JIT system is that it makes parts available at the plant as needed.

Narrative 17-1 In Recent Years,Japanese Companies Such as Mitsubishi,NEC,Fujitsu,and Sony Began Turning