General Motors Chevy Cavalier just-in-time assembly plant

Manager-by-rote: enforcing one-hour-stock JIT even for fastener bins where a week's supply fit in a small box. Used to make the "common sense in applying tools" point.

Just-in-time — there's a General Motors story, west of Cleveland: an automotive assembly plant where they were going to build Chevy Cavaliers. A new manager came in and said, "We're going to do just-in-time. We're not going to have more than one hour of stock for any part that goes on the automobile." A couple of people designing this assembly line said, "Well, we have some bolts —" and they could keep a week's supply in a box no bigger than this. "Nope, we're only going to have one hour." So you're going to have a box the size of a pill box — you know, for your prescription pills. That was what that manager said, and he was going to enforce it, even if it made no sense, because he was using just-in-time, and at the time it was one of the latest and greatest ideas. The point being: you have to use some common sense in applying these things. That's what managers get paid for.