Just-in-time is part of the concept “lean”. It was developed by Toyota and is nowadays used in many production plants. Required materials are delivered at the exact point when they can be used in production.
Thus, the stock within the production plant shift to a mobile stock on the road. In this way, the capital lockup for operating supplies can be reduced and production can be made more flexible. The planning for this delivery is very complex and impossible without ta proper IT-system. However, through connected production facilities and smart supply chains, it is possible to precisely plan demand and delivery times and communicate the required data machine-to-machine without any human intervention. To produce individual products, a further step - "just-in-time-delivery" - is applied: The materials or parts are delivered in the exact chronological order in which they are required in the production line to produce the particular individual item.