Here is the original article in question, from the Wall St Journal. The article did a little fear mongering, as the WSJ seems to do about once a year, about risks of “just in time” inventory practices.
Womack is right to point out that, even in a JIT system, that safety stocks or “emergency stocks” are required to protect against normal demand variations. For vaccines and drugs designed to protect us against bio-terror attacks, thankfully the demand for these is very “spiky”, if it's ever going to be needed.
Here is my exclusive 5 part Q&A with Jim Womack from late 2005.
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