Alt fuels was Re: [AT] Gasoline $

[Indiana Robinson]

On 12 Aug 2005 at 7:45, Mike Sloane wrote:

> "Just in time" isn't about being in a rush. JIT is about reducing 
> inventory costs to improve productivity. When you have the parts you 
> need precisely when you are ready to incorporate them into your product, 
> you don't have to own, inventory, and warehouse them any longer than the 
> absolute minimum. And this extends to retail operations. Excellent 
> theory, not easy to implement.




	I operated the store that way for 20 years but we just called it being too poor to carry 
a bunch of inventory. The term "just in time" was not popular yet. It didn't take me long 
to realize that since we repaired all brands of vacuum cleaners including commercial 
units that thousands of dollars of parts inventory still was no guarantee that I would 
have the part I needed on hand. I finally found a parts vendor in Hammond Indiana that 
had about everything and if we called before noon one day the parts came UPS before noon 
the next day. A whole bunch of vendors that thought that 2 or three weeks was good 
shipping time no longer got much of my business. One problem was that the item was often 
sold and gone long before I got the bill and if the price had gone up the profit went 
down. I found out from an office girl there that they did price out the COD orders. We 
switched to COD and it all worked well. The small extra COD fee was minor compared to the 
gain.
	One advantage of being close to Indy (25 miles) was that many of the companies that we 
dealt with had a warehouse there. It was simpler in many cases to just combine several 
trips and pick up the stuff we were selling ourselves.


-- 
"farmer", Esquire
At Hewick Midwest
      Wealth beyond belief, just no money...

Paternal Robinson's here by way of Norway (Clan Gunn), Scottish Highlands,
Cleasby Yorkshire England, Virginia, Kentucky then Indiana. In America 100 
years 
before the revolution.


Francis Robinson
Central Indiana USA
robinson at svs.net