Just-In-Time for Today and Tomorrow

Just-In-Time for Today and Tommorrow

Taiichi Ohno created the Just-In-Time system at Toyota, but his mind never stands still. In this book, in dialogue with top Japanese business journalist Setsuo Mito, Ohno demonstrates that a pull system like JIT, when developed into a total management system, is perfectly suited to the Information Age.

In this age of material abundance, a business must be able to serve the unique needs of its customers and still make a profit. These days, information and actions quickly become part of the past. More than ever, production flow depends on information flow, and success depends on timely response to needs.

Immediate access to information will make or break companies in the future. Ohno shows how JIT applies not only to manufacturing, but also to sales, marketing, merchandising, and the service and distribution industries. His understanding of the current implications and future applications of JIT is revealed in the three sections of the book :

• Management Systems to Anticipate the Information Age
• Management Power to Grasp and Act on the Now! of the Market
• Leadership and Decisiveness in the Information Age

Topics discussed in depth include management leadership, creativity, zero defects, total quality control (TQC), and lessons from convenience stores. Just-In-Time for Today and Tomorrow discusses the logical extensions of JIT in a broader social and business view of the world.

Publisher's Foreword
Preface
Preface to the Japanese Edition
A Note on Japanese Names

Chapter 1 : The Management System that Anticipates the Information Age
Theme : Information Originates in the Market
Dialogue A : An Age Where the Information Flow Leads the Production Flow
Dialogue B : "In Time" is not Enough, It must be "Just...."
Mito's Commentary

Chapter 2 : Management's Power to Grasp and Act on the Now! Needs of the Marketplace
Theme : Not the Past or the Future but the Now!
Dialogue A : An Information System the Provides Exactly What is Needed When It is Needed
Dialogue B : Looking at America Fires the Imagination
Mito's Commentary

Chapter 3 : Leadership Imagination and Decisiveness in the Information Age
Theme : Workplace Management Means Approaching and Eventually Becoming the Source of Information
Dialogue : Place of Imagination, Place of Convergence, Place of Decision
Mito's Commentary A
Mito's Commentary B

Afterword
Notes
About the Authors
Index

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