Introduction
Business practices are always associated with numerous strategies and policies that entities use to achieve better performance results. Just-in-time management is one of such techniques, and the case of Going, Inc. can be comprehensibly analyzed using its basic principles.
Going, Inc. Production Needs
As the case reveals, the main production needs of Going, Inc. include the ideas of increasing the production capacity, improving the ratings for quality, order accuracy, and flexibility, and reducing the lead-time and overall costs of production (MGT, 2010). Accordingly, Going, Inc. requires steps to be taken in the bulk of its production activities, and JIT is the best way for Going, Inc. to use. Defined as “a philosophy of continuous improvement” (Schmidt, 2000), JIT is understood as a process of demand-based manufacturing.
Thus, the first step Going, Inc. should take to handle its production needs is to adjust its manufacturing process to the actually observed market demands. Such an approach is also called the pull system, and is opposed to the push system (Abraham, 2008, pp. 111 – 112). The essence of the pull system lies in the fact that the company that adopts it, keeps little to no inventory on the manufacturing sets, bases its production capacities on actual updated demand figures, and can reduce its lead-time by the effective layout design (Pasricha, 2005, p. 187).
Accordingly, Going, Inc. should consider the idea of the pull system as one of the basic JIT principles it can use for satisfying its production needs. Further on, the company can adopt the complex of reliability, sharing of information, and flexibility as the three basic principles of JIT defined by Abraham (2008, p. 150). These ideas are expected to improve the three rating concerns experienced by Going, Inc., i. e. quality, flexibility, and accuracy ratings. The point here is that reliability is the concept referring to the firm ties between a manufacturer and its suppliers, based on which the former can rely on the latter in respect of quality of supplied materials, as well as their timely and accurately calculated supplement (Abraham, 2008, p. 151). The other two principles allow developing the cooperation between the manufacturers and suppliers, and this is what Going, Inc. actually needs to solve its production needs issues.
Going, Inc. Future Staffing and Production Requirements
Another point of concern for Going, Inc. is forecasting of production staffing needs. If production needs can, and should, be forecasted by the specifically designed department designed within the organizational structure of Going, Inc. (Pasricha, 2005, p. 59), the issue of future staffing projections is more complicated. According to Pasricha (2005, pp. 61 – 62), proper future staffing process should involve:
- Identifying and monitoring the number of staff at the moment;
- Identifying the staffing needs of every particular department;
- Considering possible changes of job functions and associated staff shortages or excessive staffing cases;
- Analyzing the future staffing in the context of expected company expansion and associated potential staff shortages.
Conclusions
Accordingly, the above steps are recommended for implementation by the manufacturing department of Going, Inc. due to their scholarly grounded effectiveness and expected applicability to the specific production and staffing needs. Provided the discussed ideas are implemented properly, Going, Inc. can expect considerable improvements in respect of the key process measurement criteria it defined as the most problematic.
References
Abraham, A. (2008). Accounting for Managers. Cengage Learning EMEA.
MGT. (2010). Manufacturing Division. Web.
Pasricha, H. (2005). Designing Networks with Cisco. Firewall Media.
Schmidt, M. (2000). Just-In-Time Manufacturing. Web.