usly the quantity specified on the kanban cannot be produced. Hence the importance of autonomation (as referred to above) - the system must detect and highlight defective items so that the problem that caused the defect to occur can be resolved.Another aspect of the Toyota Production System is the reduction of setup time. Machines and processes must be re-engineered so as to reduce the setup time required before processing of a new item can start.Ohno has written that Toyota was only able to institute kanbans on a company wide basis in 1962, ten years after they first embarked on the introduction of their new production system. Although, obviously, as the originators of the approach Toyota had much to learn and no doubt made mistakes, this illustrates the time that can be required to successfully implement a JIT system in a large company. Moreover you can reflect on the management time/effort/cost that was consumed in the development and implementation of their JIT system.With respect to the Western world JIT only really began to impact on manufacturing in the late 1970's and early 1980's. Even then it went under a variety of names - e.g. Hewlett Packard called it "stockless production". Such adaptation by Western industry was based on informal analysis of the systems being used in Japanese companies. Books by Japanese authors (such as Ohno himself) detailing the development of JIT in Japan were not published in the West until the late 1980's...
