JIT vs. Customer Service

JIT inventory stands for “Just in Time” inventory.  This is the ordering and receiving process that some companies implement to keep inventory costs down.  This system was said to have been developed by Toyota and came to the United States in 1977.  They order just enough to fill the shelves and hope the new inventory comes in just as they sell their last shelf item.  In theory, this sounds good, but it has many pitfalls.

Whole Foods is currently running a similar system called OTS.  This stands for “Order to Shelf”.  But it’s not working well.  They are suffering inventory shortages, leading to empty shelves, and their customers are mad.  So, if you are shopping there and they are out of bananas – what do you do?  You go to another store to purchase bananas and you find out you can buy them much cheaper at this alternate store.  Subsequently, Whole Foods possibly loses a good customer.  So, are they really saving money??  Shoppers don’t want to run from one store to another.

Efficiency vs customer service??  Wow — always a key question.

Rogers Poultry has been around since 1927.  We decided many years ago that customer service was much more important than super-efficient inventory systems.  It’s for that reason, we never short our customers—no matter how large the order.  We want our customers to know we have their back and will always be able to fill their orders.

So, to all our customers—-Thanks for being loyal to us for all these years.  We won’t let you down!

 

George Saffarrans

CEO, Rogers Poultry