Just-in-Time’s Skewering Is Undeserved

The recent pandemic affected Americans and businesses in many ways. In business, the most revealing issues that were exposed were the problems with Just-In-Time (JIT, or the pull method) supply chains. Lean took a lot of blame for many of the resulting shortages. But the problems weren’t attributable to JIT systems. Wendover Productions is a Youtube channel that “is all about explaining how our world works.” Within the past month (June 2021) Wendover posted an interesting video on YouTube. As of early June 2021, it had been viewed over 3 million times. The title is “Why There Are So Many Shortages (It’s Not COVID)”. You should watch it. It ought to be of interest to the business world because it explains, in detail, why the shortages that occurred during the pandemic were not caused by Just-In-Time (JIT) supply chains. This is not really surprising for many of us who worked in the Toyota Production System (TPS). But it’s encouraging to hear it understood and explained by someone who, presumably, did not have that experience.