h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A581591

I started to write this as a revision exercise, I don't think I'd be able to get all that down in 2 hours in an exam though...

Hopefully i'll be Just in time to catch somne comments.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

DE

PS It's a bit long but please take a look anyway

Mikey likes it! Lots!

One quick comment -- "western Hemisphere" should be either "Western Hemisphere" or "western hemisphere".


Mikey

Done.

Was the example useful?

The example was my favorite part -- otherwise the entry would have been a bit too theoretical for me.


Mikey

I want one of those notebooks! Have you asked Mark to see if he can commission a firm to make some?

Nice article. Very detailed and the example livens it up lots, making it more palatable.
Should go through with no real problems,

Kenrick

Ditto!

It reminds me of two things: my old Business Studies lessons, and the fact that I should be revising right now!

Yes, this one won't fail

However, you might add something to the 'denting trees' point:
Here in Germany, car manufacturers have almost completely gotten rid of their warehouses (saving costs of course). But... the warehouses are still there: it's the awfully long convoys of trucks which are clogging the autobahns and polluting the air. Before JIT, the bulk of supplies was transported on railways or even on inland waterways. Transporting, say, 20tons of sheet medal on the railway adds just one more waggon to a train. The same 20 tons on a truck require the truck plus a driver, plus create further pollution, since

(a) hundreds of cars are standing in traffic hold-ups (wasting time and fuel),

(b) most of the time, the trucks return *empty*, and

(c) the roads suffer from wear and tear, all those construction sites create more traffic jams and reconstruction has to be payed by the public.

Therefore, could one say that the cleverness of JIT is that it shifts the cost and waste away from the manufacturer and hands the burden over to the public?

----
* Looking around the huge pile of Peer Review threads *
Err... some of them start rotting

Bossel (Scout)

I kind of alluded to that in the 'Problems with Just in Time' section. How about I make what I say in that section a little more explicit and refer back to the 'denting the trees' comment?

Hello,

Nice article. I think it's an excellent subject for the Guide, and I don't really see any problems with it. I'm glad you also note that it is sometimes necessary for JIT manufacturers to maintain some inventory to handle rushes or more unfortunate incidents (accidents, disasters, strikes). As far as downsides, I think sometimes JIT requires manufacturers to maintain their own warehouses if they anticipate a need that the supplier can't maintain (or the suppliers run into problems). This can sometimes cut into manufacturer profits.

It should also be mentioned that one area where JIT has taken off in America is the Computer Industry. Dell was the pioneer, but now all major computer manufacturers are following similar steps, even hooking up automatic systems to take orders, show what is available, and link plant information to large customers. JIT also allows for greater customization, and is perfect for an industry where year-old stock is not only radically depreciated, but often obsolete.

Yours,
Jake

Ditto everyone - I really like this entry !

Something that Jake mentioned was the problems with JIT and disasters etc...My old IT teacher told my class that due to the Kyoto earthquake in 1996 , that the whole world was devoid of 100MHz processors as the manufacturers worked using JIT methods.

Hope your revision is going well - best of luck with your exams !

Stay ,
WD

Ford used to fly parts in by helicopter to their Dagenham plant over here - that's got to be expensive. I heard a rumour that the quality and consistency of some of their suppliers may have contributed the decision to stop production there, but I've no idea if it's true.

Supermarkets only hold about three days stock, warehouses capm't hold anymore than that. This was a problem during the "Fuel Crisis" last september. People heard that the supermarkets were going to run out of food (because the supply trucks couldn't get any petrol) and dashed along even quicker o buy out all the bread and milk and things.

I didn't particularly want to include examples of real world companies (that's why I made up the notewriting kits) for these main reasons:
Over concentration on the Car industry. Most of my examples of good and bad practice would come from there. Toyota, Ford, GM, Volkswagen, etc.
Keeping it up to date. In a couple of years people won't know that Ford ever had a plant in Dagenham, Dell might have changed their manufacturing process, everyone might be flying stuff in by helicopter because it avoids the traffic...
Possibly Libellous. I doubt I could quote articles or books where you could find whether or not Ford actually fly stuff in by helicopter, I was only told on a tour round the plant five years ago.

Quite apart from the fact that I thought it was long enough already.

Incidentally mass customisation [large output, many products] as practised by Dell (as opposed to the mass production [large output, one product] pioneered by Henry "you can have any color so long as it's black" Ford ) is less dependent on JIT and more dependent on the manufacturing process, agile or lean production instead of pure line production. Process Types was going to be a later article, but this had taken me weeks and I wanted to get it Peer Reviewed.

Okay, fair enough.

DE, it's /your/ entry, and all other postings here are just suggestions, even if they are from Scouts

Thought it was more polite than just saying "no I don't want to"

Suggestions appreciated though. I'll get on to an update a little later this evening.

and I've a feeling it was probably more than just computer chips that had problems. I doubt the Just-in-time process helped but the fact that the production facilities were destroyed in the Kobe earthquake was probably the bigger cause of problems

Yeah, there were similar problems with LCD screens and memory after the Taiwan quake, but it wasn't really a case of JIT being the problem, because even warehouses at the factory don't help if the entire facility is damaged.

Update complete. If you can't be bothered to run all the way through the article again to get the one new paragraph under "Problems with Just-in-Time" I've pasted it below

====================================

There are environmental effects of this shifting inventory as wellWe're back to denting those trees again.... Many firms implementing Just-in-Time still actually have quite a lot of inventory, it just happens to be carted around on trucks instead of sitting around in warehouses. This isn't really great for air pollution and such like, not to mention the increased congestion on the roads from the more frequent journeys the trucks are making between factories. Those warehouses the goods used to be kept in are still standing as well, often empty. This is a form of waste as well. The firm with an empty warehouse basically has a large stock of room for storage, and with Just-in-time implemented it is less likely to use it than the stock that was held there to begin with.
======================================

An improvement?

The raw material buyer and production controller part of me just can't resist sticking in my tuppence worth here. Yep, I have the dubious pleasure of trying to make JIT work to earn my daily bread.

A good entry, the only minor nitpick I have is one of the footnotes seemed a bit too long.

My own experience is that this only works for those companies with enough financial clout with their suppliers to make it work. For the littler manufacturers, they're selling to companies who are bigger than them and demand JIT deliveries, and purchasing from companies bigger than them, forcing them to take stupidly high MOQ's with ridculous lead times. The stockholding is still there, it's just been forced onto the smallest player in the chain. Shall I get off my soapbox now?

BTW - the Japanese earthquake - much of the problem wasn't so much damaged production plants and warehousing, it was that the port was destroyed (Kobe) What could be made had to form a rather long queue at Osaka airport.

Sue

Ok, I stand corrected Not only did I get the name of the place wrong , I got it completely wrong, facts and all

Suffice to say, A levels were 4 years ago, and my brain has had several memory gaps since I discovered schnapps......sorry again for the bad information

Stay ,
WD (being boiled alive in the London heat - apparently it will be a lot cooler tomorrow...)

well... i learned something here today, great entry!

WD, the amount of coverage the global warming thing has had here lately, we've all got Kyoto on the brain! It's not surprising I remember it better, you would have too if you'd have put in as many hours on the phone begging favours as I did

Sue - also feeling somewhat parboiled in current heat ...