Determining Mode of Transportation
Traditional purchasing approaches rely mostly on the supplier and transportation
company to determine how to ship products to the buyer. In most traditional purchasing
organizations, the manufacturing organization is only concerned with outbound
shipments; effectiveness of this is measured by how much the traffic manager can save
in transportation charges. [Ref. 3:p. 35]
In JIT purchasing, on-time delivery is of paramount importance. Because of this,
the buying organization's traffic manager is responsible for inbound as well as outbound
shipments. To meet JIT delivery requirements, delivery dates and times, types of
carriers, routing decisions, and shipping processes must be designated by the buyer.