Just-in-time for supply chains in turbulent times

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic and other recent disruptions in the early 2020s led to sections in the business press blaming just-in-time (JIT) practices for operational failings. Consequently, there are calls for moving away from JIT toward holding more inventory as preparation against future disruptions, which is referred to as just-in-case. The academic community is also divided. Some scholars argue that JIT is not resilient, while others maintain that JIT can continue providing superior performance even with disruptions. Motivated by this debate, we discuss various misconceptions about JIT that underlie this debate. Furthermore, we present different ways to adapt JIT for turbulent environments and argue that companies can improve their supply chain performance if JIT supply chain segments are chosen fittingly—even more so—during disruptions.