A study of application of JIT with stochastic pull rate and supply arrival time

The Japanese Just-In-Time production system has drawn considerable attention from American practitioners and researchers. The researchers and industrial executives are seeking to find ways to implement the Just-In-Time concept in the American production environment which does not possess the ideal Just-In-Time characteristics, such as "on-time" delivery and constant (stable) pull rate. Most presentations of Just-In-Time have been descriptive. Very few mathematical models have been developed.

In this study, mathematical models are developed to describe the effect that the uncertainty in the demand and supply arrival times, the different levels of safety stock, and the operating inventory order quantity have -on the performance measures of the system. The performance measure of the system was the percentage of the average production line idle time, the average safety stock inventory carrying time per kanban, and the average operating inventory carrying time per kanban.