Just In Time Manufacturing a Thing of the Past?

[gene]

Much of the best audiophile gear is made here in the United States but it is close to impossible to build these products without parts/chips/etc which are all made in China. If you don’t have a healthy reserve of them on hand – then good luck to you for making a living or keeping your company going and-or growing.

There is always room to make for a better audiophile experience but it is hard without really fantastic AV gear. How will the industry overcome these supply chain issues? Is it time to abandon the Just In Time Manufacturing Model?

Read: JIT Manufacturing & Post COVID Audio Industry

 

[highfigh]

Hopefully, American manufacturing will make a comeback, but many of the materials and substances used for making electronic parts are toxic and the EPA has restricted their use. While there are ways to mitigate the risks, that would increase the cost. The electronic industry is a good example of why 'putting your eggs in one basket' is a bad idea.

 

[CooperCPuppy]

Man this article made me reconsider putting my Audio gear up in the chopping block . Great work

 

[MaxInValrico]

Much of the best audiophile gear is made here in the United States but it is close to impossible to build these products without parts/chips/etc which are all made in China. If you don’t have a healthy reserve of them on hand – then good luck to you for making a living or keeping your company going and-or growing.

There is always room to make for a better audiophile experience but it is hard without really fantastic AV gear. How will the industry overcome these supply chain issues? Is it time to abandon the Just In Time Manufacturing Model?

View attachment 54948

Read: JIT Manufacturing & Post COVID Audio Industry

Americans for the most part think cheap goods are a right. They are not.

 

[Hetfield]

Americans for the most part think cheap goods are a right. They are not.

And we have absolutely no perspective of what prices are around the world. The neanderthals I work with think gas prices are the highest here than in rest of the world.

 

[j_garcia]

And we have absolutely no perspective of what prices are around the world. The neanderthals I work with think gas prices are the highest here than in rest of the world.

They are high for us now yes, but other places were already paying higher than what we're complaining about lol. A friend said it is now the equivalent of $10/gal in Germany.

 

[3db]

And we have absolutely no perspective of what prices are around the world. The neanderthals I work with think gas prices are the highest here than in rest of the world.

Just look at your neighbour to the north I laugh everytime the US complains about their high fuel prices and prices of goods in general just as Europe laughs at Canada.

 

[SithZedi]

Great article. I remember having to study how Toyota set up their JIT process in the early 1970s and how it impacted their efficiencies eventually helping to crush American manufacturers. Then we let them buy the better manufacturers outright with out examining their strategic value to the US.

Some economists call what we have done over the past 40 years "exporting" our internal inflation rate. We ran up government deficits, printed money, and US companies relocating jobs overseas kept prices from going up. The theory holds because our higher wages and manufacturing costs versus China, et al, and higher environmental standards are some of the main reasons that drove it. You can trace the rise of Walmart and later Amazon directly to it. We benefited from lower prices and lost manu. jobs.

It would be great to move some manufacturing on shore again but as has been said in this thread somethings got to give. A giant pickle we are in.

 

[lovinthehd]

It was difficult adapting to JIT and it will likely have some separation issues, but still largely depends where the changes in manufacturing sites are.....

 

[Push]

I for one am very happy to see JIT disappear forever. I've lost track of how many articles I've read that claim that JIT increases quality blah blah blah ad nauseum, ad infinity but not one article that truly supports the position with genuine facts. JIT came about for one reason, and one reason only: to save costs. Nothing wrong with that, but as unions and environmental idiocy drove manufacturing off shore, it was only a matter of time before JIT changed to NQIT (Not Quite In Time).

 

[MaxInValrico]

Neither unions or environmental concerns drove manufacturing offshore. Investors demand drove manufacturing offshore.

JIT won't be going away, suppliers and sourcing will change but the methodology will remain the same.

 

[Push]

Neither unions or environmental concerns drove manufacturing offshore. Investors demand drove manufacturing offshore.

Sorry dude, you have the cause and effect wrong. Yes, investors drove manufacuring off-shore. Why? Because it was cheaper to manufacture off-shore, thus driving profits up. Why is it cheaper to go off-shore? Primarily because unions drove North American wages sky high, and the costs associated with some of our ill-thought out environmental regulations went through the roof. Thats an over simplification of course, as some of those environmental regulations are necessary to prevent the destruction of an eco system, just like some union regs are valuable, but as always in our land of excess, things got out of control, so Japan, Malaysia, Korea and China took control of the processes.

 

[highfigh]

Great article. I remember having to study how Toyota set up their JIT process in the early 1970s and how it impacted their efficiencies eventually helping to crush American manufacturers. Then we let them buy the better manufacturers outright with out examining their strategic value to the US.

Some economists call what we have done over the past 40 years "exporting" our internal inflation rate. We ran up government deficits, printed money, and US companies relocating jobs overseas kept prices from going up. The theory holds because our higher wages and manufacturing costs versus China, et al, and higher environmental standards are some of the main reasons that drove it. You can trace the rise of Walmart and later Amazon directly to it. We benefited from lower prices and lost manu. jobs.

It would be great to move some manufacturing on shore again but as has been said in this thread somethings got to give. A giant pickle we are in.

It wasn't only using JIT that allowed Japanese automakers to crush the American automakers- they actually cared about quality and the cars made here were terrible. The Big Three blew off efficiency experts because of arrogance and it cost them/us dearly.

 

[highfigh]

I for one am very happy to see JIT disappear forever. I've lost track of how many articles I've read that claim that JIT increases quality blah blah blah ad nauseum, ad infinity but not one article that truly supports the position with genuine facts. JIT came about for one reason, and one reason only: to save costs. Nothing wrong with that, but as unions and environmental idiocy drove manufacturing off shore, it was only a matter of time before JIT changed to NQIT (Not Quite In Time).

JIT does save money, but what's wrong with that if it prevents rising prices? The company doesn't need to pay for parts that may not be needed immediately, they don't need to store them, they don't need to pay interest on them if they don't pay up front- if they do pay up front, a buttload of money would be tied up in parts that won't be used immediately which also means they won't recover their cost in a short time. Also, if a part is recalled, there's a cost for handling the returns/receipt of replacements that wouldn't be paid if the parts manufacturer or distributor deals with it.

I don't know how old you are, but if imposing environmental restrictions hadn't begun, we would be dealing with worse pollution than what we had before cleanups started. The rivers, lakes and other waterways are still being cleaned of substances that were left in the late-1800s and early-1900s.

 

[Push]

It wasn't only using JIT that allowed Japanese automakers to crush the American automakers- they actually cared about quality and the cars made here were terrible. The Big Three blew off efficiency experts because of arrogance and it cost them/us dearly.

JIT does save money, but what's wrong with that if it prevents rising prices? The company doesn't need to pay for parts that may not be needed immediately, they don't need to store them, they don't need to pay interest on them if they don't pay up front- if they do pay up front, a buttload of money would be tied up in parts that won't be used immediately which also means they won't recover their cost in a short time. Also, if a part is recalled, there's a cost for handling the returns/receipt of replacements that wouldn't be paid if the parts manufacturer or distributor deals with it.

I don't know how old you are, but if imposing environmental restrictions hadn't begun, we would be dealing with worse pollution than what we had before cleanups started. The rivers, lakes and other waterways are still being cleaned of substances that were left in the late-1800s and early-1900s.

Absolutely JIT saves money and introduces many efficiencies, but right now with our off-shore sourcing of parts, it has also left us vulnerable. We seem to be under the impression that the Asian countries who have taken over our manufacturing processes are our pals. They may be friendly, but at the end of the day, they are all about enlightened self interest and they will do what is in THEIR good, not necesarily ours.

As we in North America are prone to excess, so we have been with JIT. Big batch processing may not have been the answer, but neither is JIT if you want to ensure your company can weather supply blockages. So why can't we in North America realize that there is a middle ground? A happy medium? Its time for us to find it.

As for environmental processes, you'll notice that I said "ill-concieved" environmental rules. For every valuable AND necessary rule, there is another one somewhere in the books that costs money, jobs and provides NO benefit to the environment. Thats what I mean by environmental idiocy. And unfortunately, we've allowed it to run rampant in North America, so much so that the intelligent and thoughtful environmentalists are now being ignored too.

Rod

 

[mono-bloc]

Unfortunately it's the economics' of the world, Be it in manufacturing, or worker wages. I don't have a clue on your minimum wage structure. In Oz it's around $85 an hour for unskilled workers. Compare that to the Chinese or Asian workers at $2.00 an hour.. We simply can't compete. Higher wages converts to higher retail costs. We are celebrating at the moment Standard regular petrol prices have dropped from $ 2.20 a liter to $1.85. This is due to the government dropping the fuel tax.

 

[slipperybidness]

I for one am very happy to see JIT disappear forever. I've lost track of how many articles I've read that claim that JIT increases quality blah blah blah ad nauseum, ad infinity but not one article that truly supports the position with genuine facts. JIT came about for one reason, and one reason only: to save costs. Nothing wrong with that, but as unions and environmental idiocy drove manufacturing off shore, it was only a matter of time before JIT changed to NQIT (Not Quite In Time).

JIT is just 1 leg of the Lean Manufacturing Principles.

 

[jeffca]

The just in time paradigm for all manufacturing was perfected by companies like Apple in the 90's. Seeing a documentary on how Apple manufactured its stuff, before Jobs returned & the iMac was a thing, was pretty amazing.

Parts that arrived at noon would be in new products shipping by noon the next day or sooner. The logistical challenges to do this, though, at that level is incredibly hard to achieve.

If you have the monetary clout to do JIT, it's very efficient and saves the company a lot of money in inventory taxes. If you aren't a giant corp, though, it's advantages aren't nearly as clear cut.

For a small company, being at the mercy of supply chain problems and varying prices due to that is not necessarily great. The down side about not doing it is that you may need to use short term loans regularly to buy products in bulk and still pay your employees.

This is not a simple problem to solve and has no simple answer.

 

[MaxInValrico]

Sorry dude, you have the cause and effect wrong. Yes, investors drove manufacuring off-shore. Why? Because it was cheaper to manufacture off-shore, thus driving profits up. Why is it cheaper to go off-shore? Primarily because unions drove North American wages sky high, and the costs associated with some of our ill-thought out environmental regulations went through the roof. Thats an over simplification of course, as some of those environmental regulations are necessary to prevent the destruction of an eco system, just like some union regs are valuable, but as always in our land of excess, things got out of control, so Japan, Malaysia, Korea and China took control of the processes.

Horseshit.

 

[GuyInLA]

JIT is just 1 leg of the Lean Manufacturing Principles.

This Is EXACTLY correct! JIT has values in some of the other replies listed but one of the most important is cash flow which is not a direct correlation of profit (and the maximizing of it). Often, the search of maximizing profit (by blanket purchase orders and many other factors) puts a squeeze on CASH FLOW, which is the lifeblood of a company’s survival, even more so than the percentage of profit..especially for small manufacturers. The reliance on specialty components or a narrow supply source has the same effect on the ability to ship, whether lean or not. Sure, singular metrics can be measured (per-unit discounted costs, etc). But even with such benefits, UNLESS you can physically take possession of all the materials in a BOM and can actually ship components, cash flow will be affected.