New developments in manufacturing: the just-in-time system

Over the last decade an important transformation has taken place in the nature of manufacturing. New forms of production organisation pioneered in Japan are out-performing traditional methods of mass production in the west. In this paper Andrew Sayer shows how the revolutionary ‘just-in-time’ system turns upside down many western assumptions about manufacturing, and discusses the possibilities and implications of its adoption in the west. According to Sayer the Left has tended to be dismissive of such innovations, and he sets out to show that such an attitude weakens the ability of the Left to respond to the challenge they pose.