A behavioral case study of Just‐in‐Time implementation
通过对一家电子企业电路板区域工人和主管的访谈，研究了他们对准时制（JIT）的感知，发现绩效评估系统是最大问题，导致“推式”而非“拉式”生产，并讨论了组织设计对JIT实施的影响。
Abstract A behavioral study of the just‐in‐time (JIT) situation in the circuit pack area of an electronics firm was carried out. The primary focus of the study was to examine how workers perceived JIT in their work area. A total of twelve people were interviewed—eight operators and four supervisors. The results of the study indicated that there had been many positive accomplishments, including the overall positive perception of the participants about JIT. There were, also, problems with the JIT situation, often related to the environment of the circuit pack area. Specifically, participants perceived the performance evaluation system as the most significant problem with JIT; it systematically caused a state of “push” instead of “pull.” Uncooperativeness of operators was noted by the operators themselves as a problem within the circuit pack area. It is concluded that JIT manufacturing increases the need to effectively handle problems in the organization's environment as well as within the sub‐area itself due to the lower levels of inventory. This reduction of inventory increases the interdependence of activities in the organization, thereby necessitating an efficient and effective problem‐handling capability. A discussion of why large functional organizations are less appropriate than smaller product organizations as a JIT environment is presented (e.g., effective problem handling requires increased coordination in the organizational structure, which is usually absent in large functionally designed organizations). To overcome this limitation, an organizational team approach is proposed as a temporary means of dealing with the increased interdependencies.