Book Note - Nicolas Hatzfeld

Muriel BELLIVIER

Paris, L'Harmattan, 1996, 294 p.

This book sets out to examine the effects of just-in-time. Besides just presenting the origins of the system and comparing it with the traditional system called << assurance stocks >>, several paths can be laid out.

In a company, just-in-time modifies structures, by giving greater importance to the direct horizontal relations between the manufacturing premises to the detriment of the vertical relations: just-in-time exists principally in and between the workshops. It contributes to the overlapping of phases of activity that had been distinct, communication, manufacturing and transport. The latter is changing status, and is becoming, in itself a generator of value. In Muriel Bellivier's opinion, even now, what counts most for a company is the circulation of goods rather than manufacturing or worker relations.Companies make use of the new ambiguity of their limits. The main factors which contribute to profitability are kept internal and constraints are pushed off on the suppliers, notably the constraint of using their own stock to assure their capacity to adapt to variations in production. Costs such as energy, accidents and holdups are externalized towards the national economy. According to the author the consistency of these factors, the interdependence of economic agents, is the strength of the new productive system which is starting to prevail.

The structure of the transport system is modified according to the geographic or historical particularities of the area concerned, by the spread of just-in-time, which resorts in priority, to certain modes of transport. In return, the company risks subjecting itself to the transport system, to its own constraints, which are particularly clear in the case of French road transport: the increase of traffic and its hazards, which ensue from the diffusion of tight flows, tend to place companies in an excessively fragile position. Through the transport system and the suppliers, it is the conditions in which just-in-time is carried out, that is to say, fluidity and flexibility, which are externalized. This explains the fact that certain companies are partly reintroducing stock, or putting on a little "weight".

The production environment is modified. However, in France, we do not systematically witness a reconcentration of activities according to area, especially the activities of suppliers, around core factories. The real distance fades in significance when confronted with the reaction time limit, the "temporal distance" in which the information networks take on a growing importance.