Book Reviews

Just In Time For America

By Kenneth A. Wantuck

Reviewed by Steve Buchwald, CIRM

This month's book review is on a textbook our LAPICS instructors use for the Saturday morning CPIM review class on JIT. The book, Just In Time For America, was written by Kenneth A. Wantuck, and was first published in 1989. The copy we have is the ninth printing, printed in 1997, but the book has never been updated.

I found this book to be a well-written book on a broad subject. For example, the entire discussion on trigger mechanisms, found in chapter 11, the pull system, was just mathematical enough to get the point across. However, at the same time it was complete and up to date. When dealing with concepts like these complete yet simple is a necessity not a luxury. Nonetheless, I did find one drawback with the book. It is a typical textbook in that it is difficult to sit down and read without getting a little bored.

When you read this book on your own you will want to read it a chapter at a time as you would if you were in school. This will mean that you will not finish the book for a long time and you will lose some of the ideas while others will be absorbed in a random manner. Thus, while the author may have succeeded in providing you the perspective, understanding and the tools to begin implementing JIT, he will have failed in providing a clear picture of how all the pieces fit together and reinforce one another.

The author must have realized this potential shortcoming because he addressed it in the preface where he says, "It is my hope that you'll read the book from cover to cover because each chapter builds on previous ones and there's a lot of good stuff there that you should know about. If on the hand, you're in a big hurry to get the gist of the contents, you can read Chapter 1 and the summaries at the end of the remaining chapters. That will give you a fairly decent perspective of JIT from only 39 pages of reading."

However, let me offer another suggestion: why not take a Saturday morning JIT review class, or arrange to have LAPICS bring JIT instruction to your company through our in-house education program? You will be able to discuss JIT with other implementers, get information that builds on this book, concentrate on the parts of this fine book most relevant to your needs, and you will be able to learn from the expertise of the LAPICS instructor. This will enhance you learning experience and will bridge the shortcoming mentioned above.

This book is about change and with the pace of change accelerating as it is you owe it to yourself to keep up. If you're not striving to improve, you are getting worse.

Until next time then let me say, "good reading".