LowNSlow: Thanks for your input re Just On Time. My employer ran a course on this in the mid to late 80s and it was stressed at the time that it was never to be referred to as Just In Time. It was drilled into us, with the result that, after all theses years, I still get wound up when I hear the JIT phrase mentioned. While watching the TV programme re the motor industry, I came to the conclusion that I might as well give up getting excited about it as I think it has seen so much use over recent times that it will catch on and stay.
Something else struck me while watching that programme on BBC2 was the oft repeated claim that different bits of vehicles will cross borders into and out of the UK "many times". I have never seen the evidence of this and the scene at the Toyota factory seemed to disprove this theory. All the components arrived as single items and were then built up or assembled into vehicles as and when required (JOT). At no stage did anyone assemble a handful of parts, ship them abroad and receive them back again as bigger lumps with added bits.

Thank you sir.

bulldog89; "not a second earlier" is taking it a bit far. On time is the correct description for having a part at the time you need.

KelvinD; I had a similar experience first with the aforementioned American professor then on subsequent occasions from people who had very extensive experience of organising the delivery of pretty much everything from air filters to nuclear weapons. I also thought the "many times" comment was unjustified.

I would point out that many "technical" plastic parts cannot be replicated with the current 3D home printers relying on fused filament or less frequently on stereolithography.
Some need to be molded, pressed, injected, reinforced etc., some are too large.
Beside, at the moment, successfully printing complex parts is not straighforward, even for the geeks among us.

But for small non-precision parts in low temperature and low stress environment, yes an amateur 3D expert can succeed.

The technology is moving at a very fast rate though.

A few weeks ago an injection moulded plastic component in one of our sets of blinds broke. The original supplier wanted nearly £30 to supply a spare. I spent an hours measuring and drawing the part, using the broken bits as a guide, then another couple of hours printing a new part in the toughest resin I had on hand. The resulting 3D printed part seems to work fine, and may well be stronger and less brittle than the original. Best of all, I now have the file for the part, so if we need any more spares in future it's just a matter of printing them off.

I'm really impressed with the quality of resin printing, especially as my 3D printer is a relatively cheap, Chinese made, one. It consistently produces very accurate and well finished parts, that are virtually indistinguishable from injection moulded parts.

I really don't believe you actually get it. There is nothing anyone can do about factors outside of your own control, and vehicle manufacturers (or rather their bean counters) simply don't accept that these kinds of delays can possibly happen; when they do they hit their bottom line. Any algorithms that factor in delays (and expenses such as customs duties and up front VAT outlay) will likely call for great forward stocks to be held. Stock on hand = increased costs = reduced profits.

I sometimes feel that people posting here have never been involved in the money earning end of business, just the money spending side. Of course, as this is the professional pilots rumour network I suppose that is only to be be expected! I'm sure I've heard several time through history the mantra "pilots should never run airlines".

Yes, but all of those cited are largely independent of Brexit or any new customs regime.
Post-Brexit will definitely add some time to deliveries from EU countries which may, in turn, cause some disruption to imports from other countries. So there is that risk.
But I would expect it to be short-term until the purchasing and logistics boys get on top of the problem.
In fact, most of this risk should have already been identified and procedures formulated, say two years ago, to obviate the risk.

You can't just "obviate the risk". Your shipment of a particular component is on a groupage truck (that's a truck carry multiple consignments from different shippers, for different consignees). There might be anywhere between 2 and 200 shipments on that trailer. If just one requires a customs examination, and the trailer is being at, say Dover, the whole trailer is delayed. If the issue is one of an incorrect or incomplete customs declaration the whole trailer load is again potentially delayed whilst one clearance agent or importer resolves the issue. JIT means just that - IN TIME. A 3 or 4 hour delay becomes crucial to the production, and you can't just make vehicles with one part missing.

To get over that, the solution is to hold more stock. Stock on hand = higher costs = reduced profits.

Of course these minor inconveniences are largely irrelevant as the Brexit has to be done, in any form, at any cost to corporate profits or worker's employment. If fact any other consideration than leaving the EU is pushed aside by those for whom Brexit will have little meaningful effect.

Yes, there is the potential to require additional surge capacity. That is correct, additional.
As you said, the concept is to get as close as possible to delivering directly from supplier to production line but that ultimate goal is very seldom achieved simply because you do have to allow for weather, French protestors, etc.
There is always a requirement for surge capacity for the receiving process. That may increase slightly because of increased risk of delayed deliveries but customs processing is only one of numerous possible and current delays.
What you are suggesting is that all of the current logistics bottle necks are perfectly under control and acceptable but potential customs delays will be completely unmanageable and unacceptable because of the certain doom it will inflict on otherwise rosy industry.

Another aspect that you are overlooking or ignoring is that in many cases, JIT for a major manufacturer (a real misnomer) is actually provided by on-shore consolidation.
That is, a parts supplier is providing the necessary warehousing / surge capacity and on-shore consolidation for the "manufacturer" who is actually just a parts assembler.

Questions that come from the recent debate on parts delivery:

1. What do they do when weather delays the parts by several days?
2. What do they do when transport break downs and delays the parts by several days?
3. What happens when a strike delays the delivery of parts for a day or two?
4. What happens when an accident delays the delivery of parts for a couple of days?
5. What happens when sickness delays the delivery of parts?
6. What happens now when the paperwork has not been completed properly and sorting it out delay’s delivery of parts?
7. What happens when contraband/illegal immigrants are found, and delivery of parts is delayed while being investigated?

We are told that the above is factored in and can be handled without to much issue to the bottom line or the need to stockpile parts that lower profits and cost lots of money, yet the addition of extra paperwork or checks that might be required post leaving is not manageable and any issues with said paperwork that may take hours rather than days to sort out is now an issue for those same people who manage to do business when any or a number of those listed above issues occur.

After leaving the same amount of transport is going to travel the same routes as they do now, yet the way some people are talking the amount of lorries in and out of ports is going to increase post leaving to vastly exceed the capacity of those ports to cope.

I spent two days being shown around the Nissan plant here about 15 years ago, looking at their JIT system. IIRC, they were working on a 4 hour stock of components on-site, with suppliers being committed to deliver within something like a 30 minute window several times a day. The suppliers had the problem of how to manage logistics, not Nissan, as they just "fined" any supplier who held up production, for any reason. I witnessed a line stop, where there was a problem with fitting a door window mechanism. The supplier's representative ran down the line to see what the problem was, only to walk back a few minutes later saying it wasn't his companies problem, and remarking that the line stop would cost whoever's problem it was hundreds of pounds a minute in penalties.

I always assumed that the suppliers must keep warehouses full off-site, to deal with the vagaries of British weather, traffic, strike action, normal shipping delays etc. Factoring in the impact of customs checks is probably just another thing to add to an already long list of things that can impact the smooth running of a supply chain.

If we're talking about imported parts the answers to all the questions are chartered aircraft, at great expense; or dedicated express van where possible. Worst case, production line stop.

VP959

People often assume that, but as you found out it just isn't true. The examples that Exrigger quotes are just things that can happen, but that aren't built into budgets. When I was involved in vehicle manufacture logistics from the haulier's side, we had one instance where the manufacturer needed some parts that we had told them were on the way on our nightly groupage shuttle. They took it upon themselves to "hijack" the truck and trailer, fully loaded with cargo destined for multiple consignees and take it directly to their distribution centre where their couple of boxes were unloaded and the vehicle sent on it's way. We were not amused and pointed out in no uncertain terms that such behavior by a client is simply not acceptable. That serves to illustrate just how crucial on time deliveries are to the automotive industry.

There are, as has been pointed out innumerable examples of how sh1t can happen, all of which are costly. Brexit is just unnecessarily adding further to that list.

The answer you gave to solve questions 1-7 would be exactly the same for possible delays from additional paperwork checks/issues that might occur post leaving, i.e. using a Chartered aircraft or a dedicated express van where possible, and items 1-6 on my list could apply just as equally to those solutions pre and post leaving, the argument about post leaving issues for parts delivery just do not stack up when you look what I posted and the response so far, worst case the production stops as it does now.

Quite right! But industry doesn't need more hurdles put in place because of the whims of our government, on the back of a referendum during the campaign for which, I'd be pretty certain, these kinds of issues were never raised.

Only 10 times. A bargain I'd say.

As yet we do not know that there will, in actuality, be more hurdles put in place because of the whims of our government, and these issues might not have been raised during the campaign as it was possible that people did not believe they would be issues at that time by the remain side, if they were surely they would have been part of what was dubbed project fear, a lot of these perceived issues came about when it looked like the UK might actually be leaving and it appeared other tactics did not appear to work so well.

An interesting point about costs.

This informative article contradicts the blasé view of some about the additional checks and time delays......

https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/e...ime-production