Meanwhile, we have all been bombarded with posts and articles that are quick to expose the Just-in-Time and Lean approach to management as one of the major causes of the lack of medical supplies, so much needed in the battle against COVID-19. Well-respected journals and university professors alike have ignorantly equated Just-in-Time and Lean with low, even too little inventory; how naive. I have also written about this misunderstanding before: Resilient Just-in-Time: An Oxymoron?. But why is it that Lean companies, and particularly Toyota, have been witnessed to withstand crises like these, as the best? And to recover as the fastest of all? And to come out of a crisis stronger than ever before? Remember that Toyota was born from a crisis, rose to stardom during the oil crisis, and has been growing stronger through the financial crisis and the earthquakes during the last decade. This is because Lean and JIT are so much more than the mere logistics that some appear to only see, as it is part and parcel of Toyota’s way to build financial resilience.
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