In today's market, with the competition being international, aggressive, and customer-driven, it is important to have an inventory strategy. With customer demanding more variety and better quality service, including both reliable and fast delivery, Just In Time (JIT) inventory strategy is the way to go (Vokurka, p14-22). JIT is a strategy made decades ago to reduce waste, and has many advantages to make, what is needed, when it is needed and the amount needed, but also has risks.
             JIT inventory is a production strategy that increases the return on investment by reducing carrying costs. Its roots come from the need to terminate sources of composing waste by producing the right quantities of raw materials and products, when needed. JIT is constructed to make cost reductions on inventory and keep them down. The idea is to have an improved delivery, by having the parts manufactured arrive just in time to be picked-up, put together, and be there just in time for the customer. The theory of JIT also aids in the quality of productions and that there may be a need for certain items at another job.
             The JIT concepts were introduced in Japan in the mid 1970's, as a reaction to the world-wide oil crisis, primarily associating with the Toyota Motor Company (Chapman, pg 195). "Toyota Motor Corporation's vehicle production system is a way of "making things" that is sometimes referred to as a "lean manufacturing system" or a "Just-in-Time (JIT) system," and has come to be well known and studied world-wide. This production control system has been established based on many years of continuous improvements, with the objective of "making the vehicles ordered by customers in the quickest and most efficient way, in order to deliver the vehicles as quickly as possible." The Toyota Production System (TPS) was established based on two concepts: The first is called "jidoka" (which can be loosely translated as "automation with a human touch") which...