The Toyota Production System (TPS) earned the sobriquet 'JIT' in the 1960s. It created a very narrow view of TPS and created an image that it was suitable only for discrete and repetetive manufacturing industries. It created an image that implemeting TPS meant 'zero inventories'. Actually zero inventories are only possible when the production shop is shut down for good.
The word 'lean' has replaced JIT to describe TPS. The word first surfaced in an article by Krafcik in the Sloan Management Review in the Fall 1988 issue. Womack's book 'The machine that changed the world gave the word 'lean' worldwide acceptance. Both Krafcik and Womack talked about TPS. The only difference was that they talked in terms of generic principles. This caused a
huge change in the nature of TPS implementations. Service organisations started implementing their own version of TPS.
Check this article of lean implementation at a small hospital.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/12/23/leanhealth/
It gives a very good message. TPS / Lean / JIT is not merely about inventory reduction. They are a set of principles. It is about making work more simple and reliable. Kanban, TPM, etc are merely tools. Lets hope more organisation abandon the jargons and fall in love with the simplicity of TPS.
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