A proposed model of JIT purchasing in an integrated steel plant

Just-in-time (JIT) till recently has been more confined to manufacturing se ctors. But the recent literature is full of articles on JIT in purchasing a nd service sectors [Ansari and Modarress, Potential benefits of JIT purchas ing for US manufacturers, Production and Inventory Management Journal 28 (2 ) (1987) 30-35; Ansari and Modarress, JIT purchasing as a quality and produ ctivity centre, International Journal of Production Research 26 (1) (1988) 19-26; Schonberger and Ansari, Just in time purchasing can improve quality, Journal of Purchasing and Materials Management 20 ii) (1984) 2-7 [1-3]] in Japanese and western countries. Somehow, this idea has not percolated down to the developing world where many manufacturers are still suffering from "not invented here" kind of syndrome. They have their mind set about the ol d system of purchasing and manufacturing and any thing new finds a lot of r esistance in getting absorbed in their rigid concept. In this article an ef fort has been made to work out a conceptual model for the JIT application i n the purchase section of an integrated steel plant in India. The following issues have been considered: (a) Identification and classification of mate rials and vendors which can be brought under JIT network. (b) Suggesting a freight consolidation model (FCM) to collect the items from the vendors. (C ) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.