[cptskippy]

JIT and VMI go hand-in-hand, they aren't mutually exclusive. Implementing JIT is to impose VMI on your suppliers.

The interesting thing was that Seagate avoided managing inventory by outsourcing to the logistics firm. The stock was technically Seagate's until it was ordered by Hitachi but the logistics company took immediate possession as pallets rolled out of the factory.

> The last bit works, as long as the slow transportation is closely controlled.

It didn't need to be controlled, just scheduled. You knew you need x units by d. The factory output n per week, so you could stagger shipments by way of different lines.

All of the inventory was tracked by serial numbers and it was interesting to watch it move because supply was often delivered to the warehouse out of order or shipments weeks apart arrived simultaneously.

[hef19898]

The way I used was VMI to avoid the limited flexibility of JIT, bit yes both concepts tackle the same problem. What you describe sounds like a lot of fun to run on a daily basis, would have loved to do that!