An Application of Just-in-time as a Strategy for Competitive Advantage: The Case of a Non-alcoholic Company in South Africa

This paper’s main objective is to enlighten the readers on the benefits of a good application the Just-In-Time (JIT) approach in a local South African soft drink manufacturing plant with the aim of improving the company’s performance. The study followed a mixed approach, combining both the qualitative and quantitative design approach. In order to collect data, interviews with the employees that constituted the sample were conducted before they later responded to a questionnaire to collect qualitative data. Results demonstrates that the company does not use JIT as a manufacturing strategy. This explained the difficulty experienced with many aspects of the production such as: demand management and forecasting, supply chain relationship and inventory control. A recommendation made in this study was to actively apply JIT in the manufacturing process as this practice would help the company improve its performance as far as the inventory control, the relationship with suppliers and the demand management and forecasting are concerned.