Final answer:
Just-in-time systems allow firms to expand or reduce production rapidly, improve quality control, and enhance overall operational efficiency, while also impacting labor dynamics and warehousing jobs.
Step-by-step explanation:
Just-in-time systems have gained popularity because they allow firms to expand or reduce production, improve quality control, and improve operational efficiency. Specifically, just-in-time (JIT) enables companies to maintain low inventory levels, thereby reducing warehousing costs and minimizing waste. JIT systems require suppliers to be located within one day's drive of the assembly plants to ensure timely delivery, which leads to the creation of numerous parts factories in small towns around main assembly plants. While JIT puts downward pressure on wages and benefits due to the preference for low-cost, non-union labor, it also creates opportunities for parts plant workers to exercise leverage by interrupting the supply chain, as no large inventories are kept.
In the context of car manufacturers, the adoption of JIT in the 1980s meant outsourcing to non-union plants leading to lost jobs and bargaining power for union workers while it also could lead to work stoppages, as seen with the General Motors strike in Dayton, Ohio, during the mid-1990s. Over the long term, JIT allows producers to more easily adjust to market demands, open new facilities or close them, and lay off or hire workers as needed.