Do YOU know JAVA uses JIT(A Lean Concept)?

In this blog post, we will discuss the Just-in-Time or JIT tool, part of the lean philosophy. Just-in-Time is important because it’s a very clear and easy-to-execute control of inventory processes. It controls the flow of materials and products to meet the drumbeat(Takt Time) of customer demand.

We don’t have the waste of Waiting with a well-executed Just-in-Time system

We use one unit of inventory and we’re able to get another one immediately and move on. And we can minimize waste such as storage costs. One example in the manufacturing industry is automotive assembly plants and the practice of sequencing. They trigger automotive interior trim like headliners, door trim, and instrument panels to be assembled nearby. And then delivered in exactly the right order of color and combination exactly when needed.

In the service sector, a great example would be hot dogs/burgers. And a really cool process I’ve seen is where the order ticket is stapled to a paper bag. The paper bag moves down the counter as you do. And each team member adds the ingredient so that when you arrive at the end of the counter, there’s your bag ready to go, hot and fresh.

“Just-In-Time is based on the Pull manufacturing approach”

And it’s driven by various kinds of signals such as Kanban, visual signals, Heijunka, or other techniques like that. The benefits of JIT involve controlling inventory. Controlling the flow of materials and products, reducing waiting, and reducing waste. JIT is based on the Pull Manufacturing approach. Production is driven by signals and is used to create synchronized assembly lines.

The benefit of this is that it helps create synchronization between assembly lines. You can actually have visual signals to pull in components just when needed for finished products. This in turn results in a much smoother flow in production and reduces the overall inventory cost to operate the business. There are many benefits and limitations associated with Just-in-Time. We can free up working capital in the form of inventory throughout the facility. But we can also free up space.

For example, a printing company was considering expanding its facility to accommodate pre-press operations. But after using Just-in-Time techniques, they freed up so much space that they avoided spending $150K for added square footage. As a result of a successful JIT, we may be able to downsize and save on rent, heating, and cooling. We also can reduce wasted motion and efforts associated with maintaining inventory. We can also have more working capital than what would have been allocated to the purchase and maintenance of excess inventory. Now, there are some caveats for each of these techniques. We need to recognize that Just-in-Time is not necessarily a good fit for all applications.

The benefits of using JIT are that it frees working capital, and makes space to use for other needs such as production.

JIT Allows downsizing to a lower cost, generates less waste, and lowers inventory costs

One of the limitations of JIT is that it does not work for all replenishment scenarios.

Additional limitations are the distance from suppliers. Potential supply shortages, a sudden spike in market demands, and delays in the delivery of materials to name a few. For example, what if we are far from the suppliers? If we are in the United States but the supplier is in China, they’re going to need to ship the product by boat. It can be very difficult to design Just-in-Time in that kind of situation. We have to make such significant buffers in our calculations that we’re probably better off using enterprise resource planning or a technique like that. Another potential issue is the potential supply shortages that could happen in the market.

• Does this product have a volatile supply base?
• Is there a risk of tsunamis or earthquakes or natural calamities taking out the supply source?
• Are there other things that can create significant risk to us with respect to supply chain execution?
• What about a sudden spike in market demand?

If we design our inventory system to work with Just-in-Time at 100 a day, but suddenly the market spikes to 1000 a day, Just-in-Time isn’t going to respond very well to that particular problem.

Finally, can there be unexpected delays in the delivery of materials?

This is often driven by things like the weather or the cross-border movement of materials and goods through customs.

Or perhaps transport issues associated with things like railroads. Or special kinds of transportation equipment required to move the product or service that are not predictable.

But can we implement JIT in the Information Technology (IT) world?

In computing, just-in-time (JIT) compilation (also dynamic translation or run-time compilations) is a way of executing computer code that involves compilation during the execution of a program (at run time) rather than before execution.

This may consist of source code translation but is more commonly bytecode translation to machine code, which is then executed directly. A system implementing a JIT compiler typically continuously analyses the code being executed and identifies parts of the code where the speedup gained from compilation or recompilation would outweigh the overhead of compiling that code.

The Java programming language uses a compiler named javac. It converts the high-level language code into machine code (bytecode). JIT is a part of the JVM that optimizes the performance of the application. JIT stands for Java-In-Time Compiler. The JIT compilation is also known as dynamic compilation.

In summary, before implementing JIT, it’s important to examine both the benefits and the limitations based on your specific operation.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.