Just‐in‐time: the reincarnation of past theory and practice

Abstract

Many widespread managerial concepts are expressed as abbreviations of two or three letters. In addition, they have often been introduced and treated as new‐to‐the‐world by both scholars and practitioners. For example, just‐In‐time (JIT) is a managerial concept that has been heavily promoted in the world‐wide automotive industry. Its underlying principles have been implemented by most car manufacturers or car assemblers for many decades. JIT, as a phenomenon, has been named differently at different times during the last century. Therefore, the newness of JIT and its underlying principles is questioned in the article. The article describes parts of the historic evolution of JIT during the twentieth century in literature. It is concluded that JIT is just a reincarnation of past theory and practice.