In business, just-in-time (JIT) is a style of inventory management where companies order materials and components from suppliers aligned with production schedules to reduce costs of/and storage. A key downside of this is that if there’s a sudden spike in demand, manufacturers can’t keep up. Conversely if there’s a drop in supply, manufacturer orders will drop but eventually won’t be able to meet requests.

In particular, the automobile industry does this, which was one of the causes of the semiconductor shortage in the last few years.