APPLICABILITY OF JIT IN SUPPLY CHAIN OF INDIAN INDUSTRIES

Abstract

Supply chain Management is to manage to procure the raw material, to manufacture it in form of finished/ semi-finished product and to distribute the finished product among the customers. At many instances it is observed that sub-optimisation exists in Supply chain Management due to some non value added activities in the procurement of raw materials, production process and in distribution of finished products. This would have been avoided by proper planning, execution and monitoring the activities of supply chain. Recent development in managing the supply chain has attracted JIT as effective tool to remove waste, better inventory management, quick responses, effective communication and optimised use of human resources. newlineThe applicability of JIT in Supply chain has been established in developed countries like Japan, the USA and European Countries, as indicated in literature but the same is not tried in Indian sub continent so far. The literature also highlights the JIT capability to overcome the inherent problems of supply chain like; undermining of Inventory level, waste elimination, long term relationships, free flow of information and effective human involvement remained key source of success of developed countries. Existing Supply chain of Indian industries faces the above mentioned problems. This research is to address the JIT initiative in supply chains in order to get competitive advantages. newlineThe attributes of JIT supply chain have been identified from the Literature review. The literature Review is carried out using Systematic Literature Review (SLR) methodology. Recognition of untouched/ less attended issues highlights the research direction. Finally four research questions were set up. The first one is to find out applicability of JIT in Supply chain of Indian industries second is to explore performance of supply chain due to JIT. Third one is to find out suitable supplier and distributor and fourth one is exploring alternative of JIT supply chain in case responses of industries does not match with the requirement of JIT supply chain. newline newlineSurvey of Indian Industries is carried out to find the solution of first question in terms of; level of JIT, benefits, difficulties, importance and challenges of Implementation. It is found that applicability of JIT in SCM of Indian industries in terms of level, importance, benefits, problems and challenges are high. In second answer, the performance of Supply chain due to JIT has been explored in terms of performance of suppliers, manufacturers, distributors, information handling and Business. The respective hypotheses are tested using one way ANOVA. newlineTo address third question Supplier and Distributor are taken as two important stakeholders in smooth flow of material in a supply chain. The supplier supplies the raw material to manufacturer and distributor facilitates the storage and delivery of finished product into the hands of customers. As Just in time in supply chain highly improves total time of process, responsiveness, flexibility, quality, mutual coordination, information sharing and long term relationship, therefore these two stakeholders cannot be arbitrary for any manufacturing unit. An Interpretative Structural Model (ISM) model to select a supplier and a Graph Theory Application (GTA) model to select a distributor for a JIT supply chain are proposed here. newlineThe mixed responses in survey of Indian industries also plead to explore the partial JIT application in supply chain. Indian industries are not fully ready to accept to implement all the attributes of JIT and prefer to use them partially. Fourth answer addresses alternative of JSC. Hybrid Supply Chain (HSC) has been proposed as most suitable for Indian Industries. Analytical Networking Process (ANP) method has been used to find out best alternate by finding Supply Chain Performance Weighted Index (SPWI) of three types of SCs. newlineThe Indian economy is growing at fast rate with many multinational companies are doing very well. JIT Supply chain would improve business as well as manufacturing processes at large but few challenges like; developing infrastructure, Indian traits, beliefs and technological supports are deterrent in quick implementation. newline