Increasing consumer demands mean that suppliers and customers have to work together to satisfy the end-user. In today’s economy, sometimes that means switching from traditional logistics to JIT (Just In Time), which means smaller quantities of products are moving from suppliers to customers as they are needed, rather than being shipped in mass quantities and sitting in a warehouse. 

JIT has many benefits, including:

• Improved Quality
• Reduced Costs
• Increased Market Share for Both Parties

In order to make JIT work, suppliers and customers have to create a long-term, mutually-beneficial partnership.

Here are 10 ways to make that happen:

1. Customers AND suppliers must be fully responsible for the control of quality.
2. Customers and suppliers should be independent of each other and respect that independence.
3. Customers are responsible for providing the supplier with clear, sufficient requirements. This allows the supplier to know what and how much to produce.
4. Both parties should enter into a non-adversarial contract, being mindful of quality, quantity, price, delivery method and terms of payments.
5. Suppliers are responsible for providing quality that will satisfy the customer and submit data necessary upon the customer’s request.
6. Decide the method to evaluate the quality of products or services.
7. Establish a method in the contract to reach an agreed-upon settlement of disputes.
8. Continuously exchange information to improve product or service quality.
9. Keep up-to-date on procurement, production, inventory planning, clerical work and systems so that a transparent relationship is maintained.
10. Business transactions should be dealt with keeping the best interest of the end-user in mind.

Using a mix of commons sense and customer service, suppliers and customers can create a powerful long-term relationship that keeps costs on both ends low and surpasses the end-user’s expectations.