What Were The Major Factors Behind The Development Of JIT?

Adopted first by Toyota manufacturing plants by Taiichi Ohno, JIT is a Japanese manufacturing management method that was developed in the decade of the 1970's.  

The main factor behind the development and adoption of JIT by many Japanese companies was the impact of the Second World War.  The need to rebuild the economy and compensate for the losses that Japan had suffered in the war were the two major factors that encouraged the Japanese to develop a system that is cost-effective and enables a company to reach the optimum level of productivity.  The problems that firms in Japan were facing at that time were inventory problems, product defects, enormous production lots, high costs, delivery delays, equipment breakdowns etc.

The answer to all these problems came in the form of the establishment of JIT systems- a concept that was pragmatic and productive enough to be incorporated on an international level (which it was) by a multitude of organizations, which envisaged its adoption as the pathway to their success.