World renowned Toyota Motor Corporation has a worldwide presence, with Toyota's investment in North America alone exceeding $13 billion in 11 manufacturing plants. Toyota is at the forefront of lean firms and a showcase of JIT. Executives from all over the world make the journey to Toyota to see how JIT works. But early one Saturday morning in February, a fire roared through the huge Aisin Seiki plant in Kariya Japan. The fire incinerated the main source of crucial brake valves that Toyota buys from Aisin and uses in most of its cars. Aisin has long been a supplier of the critical brake-fluid- proportioning (P-valves) values, supplying 99% of Toyota's requirement fox the valve. About 80% of Aisin's total Output goes to Toyota. As the smoke cleared, the extent of the disaster was clear-most of the 506 special machines used to manufacture the P-valves were useless. A few might be repaired in 2 weeks, but most would need to be replaced and the lead time was 6 weeks. Both Aisin and Toyota had been operating at full capacity. Consistent with JIT practices, Toyota maintained only a 4-hour supply valve. And there were few of the valves in the closely knit network that constituted Toyota's supply chain. Depending on a single source and holding little inventory is a risk, but it also keeps Toyota lean and its costs low. The Toyota plants in Japan build 14,000 cars a day. Without that valve, production would come to a rapid halt. Moreover, Toyota production managers were dismayed to find they needed 200 variations of the P-value. Consistent with the Kesector, Toyota holds 23% of Aisin's stock and Aisin's president is Kanshiro Toyota of the Toyota family that founded the automaker. Kosukelkebuchi, a Toyota senior managing director, was tracked down at 8 A.M. at a golf course clubhouse and given the bad news.

Questions: a) If you were Mr. Ikebuchi, what would you do?

b) What does this experience tell you about just in time?

c) It you had been incharge of Chrysler JIT suppliers the morning of September 11, 2001, what actions would you have taken?