Watch: Toyota's JC Deville on the future of just-in-time in automotive supply chains
At Automotive Logistics & Supply Chain Digital Strategies Europe, JC Deville, vice president of supply chain at Toyota Motor Europe, provided insight into the future of just-in-time (JIT) production – one of the 13 key pillars of the Toyota Production System.
On the Red Sofa at ALSC Digital Strategies Europe, JC Deville, vice president of supply chain at Toyota Motor Europe, elaborated on the points made in his presentation entitled 'Just-in-time – WTF?', after revealing the abbreviation to be asking 'what's the future?' for JIT production.
More of a mindset than a technical solution
Deville described JIT as "an important concept" and one that is "over-praised, over-blamed and regularly misunderstood".
"From our perspective, JIT is always – or often – taken as a toolkit, but for us it's more a mindset," he shared. "It's a way of putting permanent stress into the whole chain of activities and by doing so reveal the problems and try to solve them together, getting stronger in terms of skills and know-how."
More misunderstanding
Deville noted that where some go wrong in terms of JIT is believing to be a means of reducing costs. On the contrary, he believes JIT costs money, but in his eyes that cost is worthwhile to "reveal all the problems in order to get stronger to the next level".
By keeping stock levels low, Toyota can gain a more regular understanding of any issues impacting its supply chain. "By lowering the level of stock, we will expose ourselves to new problems – we will find them, we will fix them [and] we will fix them permanently," he explained.
Data and digitalisation
Deville shared his view that digitalisation and JIT go hand-in-hand. "In most cases, until now, we were lacking data and information," he said. "It's difficult to grasp when it's so far away from your desk, from your factory, from your shop floor... I think today's tools give us these opportunities."
New opportunities
With end-to-end visibility as a goal, Toyota has "several initiatives" that it is currently piloting across Europe, including some track-and-track piloting in its service parts logistics and – based on positive results from this pilot – Toyota plans to expand this into its OE parts logistics and finally its finished vehicle logistics.
On the finished vehicle side, Toyota is also "sharing with [its] partners much more volume forecasts" and in return it expects its partners to "positively confirm their capacity with actual lead times", ultimately replacing historical average lead times with "concrete actual lead times".
What is the future?
Answering the question he posed himself in his presentation, Deville looked forward at how the future of JIT in the automotive sector may be shaped.
"A lot of people thought that during difficult times –semiconductor [shortages], Suez [Canal blockage], Covid-19 and so on – the concept of JIT was "too much of a risk", but he argues that it is actually the other way round, with JIT allowing Toyota to get stronger in the sense of problem-solving, increasing its preparedness for difficult times.
"The world will not be easier tomorrow, therefore the ability to problem-solve, fact-find and analyse data is the way forward," he concluded. "We very much see our people and our partners as our assets, and then the technology is the frame that fits those dots together."
