This is called Just-in-Time manufacturing and has been the way cars have been built for over 30 years.
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My wife was in the market for a new car a couple three years ago, decided what she wanted and ended up buying a car from a dealer in Utah and having it shipped to Oregon. That was the only way to get what she wanted.
Funny story…she decided what she wanted and left word with the sales rep, very explicitly stating that a black interior was out of the question. 2 weeks later he calls her in to look at a new arrival at a discounted price, it was exactly what she wanted but with a black interior. She called him out on that and his answer to her was “the only color that really matters is how much green we can save in your wallet.” Knowing my wife I’m pretty sure she told him to f-off.
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That’s the fallacy of JIT. Maybe the assembly plant gets a daily delivery, but the suppliers have the warehouses of steel, parts, and sub-assemblies. If you are going to deliver 100 gas tanks tomorrow, you don’t order steel for it today, and the steel plant doesn’t tool up to produce one coil of steel to rush it to the stamping plant. Somebody carries the inventory, they just managed to shove it back a notch. Of course then comes a blizzard and the dang truck is in the ditch with those seat components. So how did JIT work for masks again?
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What’s the fallacy? I did not make any judgement, I only gave it a name.
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I didn’t say you did. The fallacy is that proponents of it claim it reduces inventory costs, which it does, but just theirs, not the others in the supply chain if they want to keep their contracts. So people hype it as the new best practices.
In the truck plant we would get a truckload of rough lumber maybe once a month. Then into the kiln to dry for a week or two. Then cut and planed and stacked some more before being made into decks and floors and so on. Totally absurd to get a load of rough lumber once a day. Same thing with steel, and so on. Not subject to weather, strikes, or other adverse events, and in economical production lots.
GM uses the term Target Production Week, you know roughly when your new car/truck will be built and it’s normally a couple weeks out. Bmw among others will have a period where it’s possible to make changes to the order but you’re better off making sure everything’s right when you place the order.
The Just-in-Time inventory is used in Factory assembly. And it can and does trickle down to the parts manufacturers. Suppliers are not keeping large inventories like they use to. They know months in advance what they will be shipping and to who and when. Just-in-time inventory requires a lot more communication from the assembler down to the parts supplier and even further down to the individual components. It works out best for everyone.
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Heh heh. One of the biggest accounts for bottle caps was a particular beer company in Wisconsin. They required a truck load of bottle caps to be delivered within a very restrictive time frame. If it wasn’t there within a few hours, the whole semi load of bottle caps that represented weeks of production would be rejected. Thing is they had a whole warehouse full. They were just the elephants able to control the suppliers, and the supplier maintained the steel coils, inks, plastisol, machine tools, and other items needed for production. Not all hunky dory.
All that proves is ONE company didn’t do it the way the auto industry has been doing it for decades. My brother-in-law is a retired plant manager for Chryco. He was a at Chryco when they went to Just-In-Time inventory. He helped implement.
Walmart is the perfect of just-in-time inventory. On average goods stay in their warehouse about 45 minutes before it’s shipped out to their stores. Not a van of Walmart…but they run a very efficient warehouse.
When Walmart shelves went empty during the start of the virus, a warehouse supervisor reported here I believe that they had the items in the warehouse but had no staff to fill the orders and get them on the trucks for delivery. Then of course after that, some suppliers with limited production capacity had trouble ramping up production. A well oiled machine and of course dependent on the weakest link. So a 45 minute stock on hand means you have to have continuous re-supply of that stock. Bumps in the road happen which is the purpose of inventory in the first place.
Years ago I worked production in a plant that manufactured auto parts. Nissan held us accountable to keep JIT. If they caught us stocking more than 3 days ahead they made us scrap the excess.
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And Covid problems happen to companies with or without using Just-in-time. So what?
To continue this endless conversation, inventory provides a cushion for irregular demand. That’s the purpose of having inventory in addition to providing for an economical production quantity. But yeah the sky is blue.
Let’s go back to the good old days when you could get the optional equipment from the Sears or Montgomery Ward catalog. You could choose between different levels of radios, a recirculating or fresh air or gasoline heater, or equip your car with turning signals or backup lights. My first car, a 1947 Pontiac, didn’t have turn signals. I ordered a turn signal kit from Montgomery Ward. My 1965 Rambler didn’t have four way emergency flashers. I bought a kit from J.C. Whitney.
When the upholstery wore, I bought seat covers. I preferred the fiber seat covers. They were cheaper than plastic or nylon, didn’t generate static electricity as you slid across the seat, were warmer in the winter and cooler in the summer. Although the fiber seat covers wore out in a couple of years, one could afford new seat covers in a different colour and pretend that one had a new car.
Also, you could buy a swan hood ornament to make your heap look like a Packard or buy fake portholes not make your low trimline Chevrolet look like a Buick.
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Choosing any car involves some compromises. For example, the 2007 Impala that ended up being so electronically and mechanically trouble prone that I traded it after only seven years had some nice features I quite liked. Long wheel base that made for a smooth ride, comfy split bench seat, button controls for radio/cd, tire pressure sensors that read out actual pressure for each tire, compass (which was nicely accurate), well insulated for quiet ride, cavernous trunk.
The 2014 Camry that replaced it involved some compromises. Shorter wheelbase with less smooth ride, bucket seats not as comfy for me as a bench or split bench seat, touchscreen controls for the infotainment system, idiot light for tire pressure, no compass, less insulation so noisier ride. But the acceleration is better despite being 4-cyl compared to previous 6-cyl cars, much better MPG, better handling, and has been VERY reliable.
To get the best features of both would require a more expensive trim or make than my budget allows. So, like most car buyers I found a compromise between price, budget, performance, features, and preferences. Basically buying what I actually need in vehicle capabilities and configuration with what level of options I could afford.
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I don’t know how wide spread it was but back in the 50’s and early 60’s, most people bought those plastic seat covers from Fingerhut. They were almost standard equipment. You could tell they were from Fingerhut because they had those bubbles in the plastic and not smooth. Paid a lot of money for a new car with nice cloth seats and spent $35 to cover them up with plastic so they would stay nice for trade-in.
Yep, my uncle bought a brand new 55 or 56 Ford, had those plastic seat covers. A co-worker in the early seventies was a newly wed, his wife had all the living room furniture covered in smooth plastic.
Then along came Scotchgard. Better living through chemistry.
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