Scheduling for just-in-time manufacturing

The concept of Just-In-Time manufacturing has several attractive features and components. The implementation of total form of Just-in-Time (JIT) in the western industrialized countries in the short run is one that will be challenging and costly. The change-over costs notwithstanding, progressive companies can obtain partial benefits of JIT through several low cost programs and operational changes while gradually adopting the JIT philosophy over time. In this paper, the effect of scheduling in JIT manufacturing systems is presented. With the objective of minimizing inventory cost, two models dealing with two cases of order shipment and delivery from the plant to the customers are developed. The use of the models are demonstrated with numerical examples.