Getting the JIT, JIT, jitters?

"But that was then, and this in now. JIT is now looked upon as the villain, which is causing empty shelves." 

Dang you Taiichi Ohno of Toyota! Look what you have done to us! Wait - who the heck is Taiichi Ohno? He is the efficiency expert who worked at Toyota in Japan in the 1970's. The person who perfected the JIT system of inventory. The idea caught on in America, and pretty soon, anyone who has worked in the manufacturing world, practiced JIT. But today, JIT is associated with our emptying of store shelves. However in the past, JIT saved the consumer boatloads of money.

Just In Time (JIT) is used by efficient companies for one reason only - cost. Inventory costs money. As soon as you take title for inventory, and it sits on your shelves, waiting to be used in a final product which can in turned by sold for money...the dollars add up. Dollars which hit your P+L statement. The less time you have something sitting on a shelf, and the title remaining with your vendor, the more latitude you can have with your capital. Plus - your cost of capital (interest on the money), will be less. The more "inventory turns" you can obtain, the more profitable your organization should become.

But that was then, and this in now. JIT is now looked upon as the villain, which is causing empty shelves. The fact of the matter is this - JIT has become so efficient, that companies using warehousing, have become much less common. Less places to store inventory - finished, or in work in process inventory.

Here is another problem associated with this mess. With hundreds of ships off our coasts, waiting to unload "stuff", where are we going to put it? If a company still has access to warehousing, they will be "golden" - part of their problem will be solved. However, if a company does not have access to a warehouse, that could be a big, big problem.

On one of the business shows I listened to yesterday, I heard an interesting take on our current inventory mess by a pretty smart business guy. He did not lay out a single cause, or a single solution to our current state - he laid out multiple issues, which needed to be fixed before we can go back to some kind of "normal". This will take a considerable amount of time and effort, with empty, or partially empty shelves, becoming the norm for quite a while.

Editorial comment: Since this is so complex, where was the Transportation Secretary when everything was becoming unraveled? Showing pictures of he and his husband's new babies. Plus, the Secretary is still on baby leave. You can't make this stuff up.

It took us a while to get into this mess, it is going to take a long while to get out of it. What would really help right now, is to have some smart people running the show. As it is, we have a bunch of "not so smart people", ruining the show.

Could Donald Trump have done a better job that Joe Biden right now? DUH! Does the sun rise in the east? I guess elections really do have consequences.