Just in time benefits and problems when the customer demand is uncertain

Just In Time (JIT) is a methodology that positively impacts on efficiency and responsiveness. However in literature some studies failed to support this relationship. A possible explanation of these mixed results could be the interaction between JIT practices and contingency factors. This study tests whether demand uncertainty moderates the relationship between JIT and operational performances. This research uses data from the third round of the High Performance Manufacturing (HPM) project data set. 244 international manufacturing plants represent the sample of our analysis. A CFA validates our measurement model, while a structural equation model (SEM) was used to test our hypotheses. This study demonstrates that the demand uncertainty negatively moderate the relationship between JIT and responsiveness, while it doesn’t interact with the relationship between JIT and efficiency.