Just-in-time and the use of transportation by Minnesota and Wisconsin manufacturers

Abstract

The objectives of the study were to determine (1) the extent to which manufacturers in Minnesota and Wisconsin have adopted the JIT concept for inbound or outbound movements; (2) what kinds of firms can successfully use JIT in terms of their size, plant location, products produced, and type of manufacturing (repetitive or non-repetitive); (3) for those manufacturers that have adopted the JIT philosophy, what their reasons were for doing so and, for non-users of JIT, why they had not done so; and (4) to what extent the assumptions concerning the use of transportation in a JIT environment are supported by the experience of manufacturers in Minnesota and Wisconsin, i.e., what was the effect of their participation in JIT on their use of transportation. The study, conducted in 1989-1990 followed a preliminary study conducted in 1988-1989.