From proto-reddit: "Anyone who has played Factorio knows that 'just in time' is far superior to actually holding reserves."
It's just like the game!!! :soypoint-2:
It's just like the game!!! :soypoint-2:
Just in Time inventory is...adequate...as far as inventory methods go, so long as literally everything in the supply chain can be accounted for. The only reason it is so overwhelmingly popular is because of the cost that is shaved off by not purchasing in bulk/not having excess inventory on hand to pay taxes on.
One rather significant downside is that if something like a pandemic happens, you're going to be fucked sideways through a wall.
And even the leanest JIT operations have contingencies planned for according to likelihood of disruption and impact of disruption. Thinking that JIT is about having literally no stock means you have absolutely no contact with any logistics operations.
Yeah, it's about running lean to save on cost/overhead. It's not a bad system, it just becomes problematic when improbable disasters happen, and the lead times on certain inventory items go from a couple weeks to 8+ months
It's part and parcel of the "end of history" idea that everything will be neoliberal forever, so why would you account for anything like a war or major disaster disrupting critical infrastructure or crashing the economy because some vital sector was bottlenecked through a single point of failure?