Important factors for implementing JIT
Billesbach (1991) surveyed 68 US manufacturing organisations, focusing on why an organisation chose to implement JIT and what factors managers believed to be importantfor successful implementation. In terms of reasons an organisation had implemented JIT,Billesbach offered his respondents four alternatives: (1) JIT meshed with businessstrategy, (2) customer(s) required it, (3) competition was presently engaged in JIT, and (4)it was endorsed as a corporate policy. These reasons for implementation, however, were not exhaustive. The percentage of respondents who believed each factor to be necessary are as follows: meshed with business strategy (77%), customer(s) required it (47%),competition engaged in JIT (49%), and JIT endorsed as corporate policy (43%). Billesbach does not discuss whether these reasons have any impact on the success of the implementation process. There is also no indication of the most desirable first step to take in successful JIT implementation.