Practice IB Design Technology (DT) Topic 10.1 Just in Time (JIT) and Just in Case with authentic exam-style questions for both SL and HL students. This question bank focuses on the exact syllabus content for 10.1 Just in Time (JIT) and Just in Case and mirrors Paper 1, 2, 3 style where relevant.
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Harbour Café currently uses a just in case (JIC) approach for key ingredients: it keeps a large storeroom inventory of bread rolls, salad items, and packaged meats to avoid running out during busy periods.
The owner is considering switching to a just in time (JIT) approach:
Recent issues have raised concerns:
A summary of the café’s current weekly figures is shown below.
| Item | Average units used per week | Cost per unit | Shelf life once delivered | Weekly waste under current system |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bread rolls | 700 | $0.30 | 2 days | 40 rolls |
| Salad packs | 220 | $1.10 | 3 days | 25 packs |
| Packaged meats | 160 | $2.40 | 7 days | 5 packs |
Outline one reason why Harbour Café might prefer a JIC approach rather than a JIT approach for at least one of its ingredients.
List two advantages of using a JIT inventory system for Harbour Café.
Outline one disadvantage of using a JIT inventory system for Harbour Café.
Harbour Café’s owner must choose between JIT and JIC for its inventory management.
Explain why the owner might use a combination of JIT and JIC across different ingredients when making this decision.
A manufacturer of high-performance racing car components operates in an industry where engineering specifications are updated monthly. Why would this company prioritize a just-in-time (JIT) approach over a traditional inventory strategy?
Hearth Harbour is a small company that assembles premium meal-kit boxes for subscription customers. Each box contains recipe cards and pre-portioned ingredients (fresh produce plus shelf-stable items). Demand varies by day, and some ingredients have short shelf lives.
Define just-in-time (JIT) inventory management and just-in-case (JIC) inventory management in the context of Hearth Harbour’s ingredients.
Using the information given, outline two operational conditions that would make a JIC approach more appropriate than JIT for some of Hearth Harbour’s ingredients.
Hearth Harbour is considering switching from mostly JIC purchasing to a JIT approach for the next 6 months.
Explain one advantage and one disadvantage of this change for the business. [6]
In a just-in-time (JIT) system, the optimal scenario is one-piece flow per process, though this is not always practical. Which of the following methods helps achieve the lowest possible inventory levels?
Soar Electric Scooter Rental
“Scooter sharing” has become popular in cities all over the world. E-scooters are being promoted as a sustainable mode of transport by providing an alternative to cars. One e-scooter company, Soar, offers e-scooters in several cities that can be easily rented via a smartphone app. A rider uses the Soar app to locate the nearest e-scooter, see Figure 1.
Figure 1: A representation of the Soar smartphone app
Soar purchased their first-generation e-scooters from manufacturer Xiomani for US$550 each. To break even an e-scooter needs to be used five times a day for five months. As the Soar smartphone app tracks battery charge, location and usage, it was found that many of these Xiomani scooters were lasting less than two months. Many were simply discarded, see Figure 2.
Figure 2: Discarded e-scooters
Outline one way how partnerships between city authorities and e-scooter companies could encourage sustainable innovation.
Outline one reason why Soar uses just-in-case (JIC) production for their Soar e-scooter.
Outline one way how the use of statistical process control can lead to improvements in the design of the Soar e-scooter.
Explain why the first-generation Soar e-scooters cannot be considered to be a sustainable design.