just-in-time management
just-in-time management
a production system through which parts are delivered by suppliers to producers in the exact number and to a specified quality when and where they are needed at each stage of the production process. It is a flexible system, pioneered by Toyota, which seeks to curtail the costs of production by reducing inventories and is associated with long-term producer and supplier relations based on mutual help. See Wood (1991). See also JAPANIZATION, NEW TECHNOLOGY.Collins Dictionary of Sociology, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2000