A systematic review/survey for JIT implementation: Mexican maquiladoras as case study

• Management commitment and education are the basis for a successful JIT implementation.
• Quality and low cost are the major benefits gained from JIT.
• Communication among workers is necessary for JIT success.
• Problem solving abilities in JIT environment requires empowerment, communication and education for workers.
• Education and training is required for empowerment, problem solving abilities, communication and quality and low cost in products.

Mexico has a free trade agreement with the United States of America (USA) and Canada which was signed in 1988. This agreement created the conditions for establishing many foreign companies in several Mexican cities along the border zone between Mexico and USA. This strategy takes advantage of the geographic proximity with one of the biggest markets in the world, qualified manpower, and low production cost. With the arrival of those companies, frequently called Maquiladoras, a lot of production approaches have been introduced, and one of those widely applied is the just-in-time (JIT) production strategy. Despite the benefits of JIT, the interrelationship among several industrial factors and their impact on results derived from the implementation of JIT are unknown in Mexico. This is the underlying reason of this article, which aims at illustrating the results of a survey applied to foreign companies established in the Mexican–USA border. On the one hand, the activities developed by these companies during the implementation process of JIT are investigated and grouped as latent independent variables. These variables include organizational commitment, communication channels in organization, empowerment granted to employees, education provided in different organizational levels, and the capacity to solve problems, among others. On the other hand, the obtained benefits investigated are grouped as latent dependent variables. These dependent variables involve inventory management, quality, and cost, among others. Those aspects in the activities and benefits of the companies were evaluated using the structural equations model (SEM), which is useful to identify and analyze causal relationships. Result obtained from SEM indicates that management commitment and education are the main critical success factors in the JIT implementation, and that success can be measured through inventory, quality, and cost performance indicators.