The acronym “just-in-time” refers to a flow management method aimed at minimizing, or even eliminating, inventory by transferring responsibility for continuous supply to suppliers to feed the customer company’s production process. This approach was originally introduced by Toyota Motor Corporation in Japan in the 1950s, driven by Taiichi Ono, who was inspired by the work of Shigeo Shingo. Today, this method is applied in various sectors outside the automotive industry.

Just-in-time procedures primarily target seven sources of wasted time: overproduction, waiting time, transportation time, processing time, product handling, production defects, and the accumulation of unnecessary inventory. The enhanced version of just-in-time, called JIT II, ​​emphasizes tighter supply chain management by strengthening collaboration between suppliers and manufacturers.