JIT (just in time) has become NIT (not in time), and supply chains are having a hard time resetting to the silken smoothness of the past. On the face of it, JIT is a brave strategy because it relies on the business world spinning in a super-efficient way with everyone not only competent but also cooperative and collegiate. A nervous type could easily see that for a manufacturer to push the responsibility of having a stock of parts onto their suppliers, it could easily become a recipe for disaster, because if an enterprise gives itself over to the care of its suppliers and if those parties fail, everything will grind to a halt for that trusting customer. A warehouse of stock is insurance against just that kind of expected outcome.
JIT means, by definition, there is little to no slack in the system. Likewise, the suppliers of the suppliers have no slack either and this chain of efficiency has become the trademark of modern industrial thinking which drives...