JIT is made to order: Beginning with the obvious goal of cutting costs by reducing inventories, just-in-time production now embraces an assortment of sound industrial practices

At Hewlett-Packard Co.'s plant in Cupertino, Calif., home of the HP 3000 Series 68 minicomputer, the time it takes to assemble a set of 31 printed-circuit boards has been slashed from 15 days in 1982 to 11.3 hours in 1986. During the same period, the inventory of circuit board work in process was cut from $670 000 to $20 000, and the number of back orders was reduced from an average of 200 to two.