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Originally Posted by 2021nightshade4x4
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Even though none of us could actually read that article, I've seen numerous similar articles in various other sources - all written by supposed "supply chain experts." Many are academics who never set foot in the real world. Not at all surprisingly, the number of supply chain experts has gone up exponentially in the last year due to all of the focus on problems created by COVID. Unfortunately, the number of true experts in the field is but a fraction of those currently getting published.
Getting back to the proclamation that companies are going to ditch Just in Time (JIT) manufacturing and supply chain practices in droves and go back to the good old days when everybody had warehouses full of inventory is simply ridiculous. The real problems with JIT are:
1) Not doing JIT correctly, and
2) A once in a lifetime pandemic
3) It's a global economy, get used to it
Starting with number 1, Toyota was, and still is, the master of JIT manufacturing. They proved this by being the last auto manufacturer to be affected by the pandemic. Even when they were finally affected, it affected them less than everybody else.
Why you ask? Because Toyota understands that excess inventory is a waste and only causes greater problems. Some amount of inventory is required in the supply chain, but how much and where is the key. Many other companies supposedly doing JIT simply have their suppliers hold large amounts of inventory in what we used to jokingly refer to as "JIT warehouses." (Toyota understands that there is no such thing.) Oh, and even though some companies had this excess inventory, they were hit earlier and harder than Toyota. Why? Because they had too much of the wrong stuff and not enough of the right stuff. I could go on for hours, but on to number 2.
The pandemic will be looked at many years from now as a once in a lifetime event. That said, should we change everything we do to prevent something that will very likely never happen in our lives again? The real answer is that we should not. Politicians will proclaim that they will be better prepared for the next pandemic by having huge stockpiles of masks, ventilators, test kits etc. And guess what, virtually all of this stuff will quietly go bad and end up getting thrown away. (Some already has.) Remember all of the FEMA trailers parked in fields after hurricane Katrina? Most were quietly scrapped.
Will manufacturers make changes to the way they run their supply chains as a result of COVID? Yes. Will all manufacturers make wise changes? No. Some will go right back to their old ways of doing business. Toyota will make incremental changes to what they do. They will not abandon JIT. Guess who will end up on top - yet again.
Finally, the pandemic highlighted something that many of us knew, but the general population did not: Like it or not, it's a global economy and nobody can survive alone. The same supply chain geniuses that say JIT is dead are saying that the answer is simple - make everything here. Sure, there are many things that we
should make here, but for a number of reasons we do not. Reasons include not having the raw materials here, excessive government regulations chasing business away, high costs of doing business here / low costs of doing business elsewhere attracting business, etc. This is truly much easier said than done.
Again, I could go on for hours on this topic, but I'll let the politicians and supposed supply chain experts blabber on and on and do nothing of substance. I spent almost 40 years in manufacturing, and I think I know more than any of them. But nobody's going to ask me.
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