"Just in time" means holding very little raw material and parts inventory. Instead you schedule deliveries from suppliers literally just in time to utilize those materials in your production process. Ideally this means the materials arrive on your receiving dock this morning and get incorporated into whatever you manufacture this afternoon.
Reynolds writes about the disadvantages of "just in time." He suggests maybe we live in a world with sufficient unpredictability and chaos to require inventories of important stuff, items without which we cannot comfortably operate.
I'd add the following: just in time came from Japan which is geographically small, has an intensive rail network, and relatively clement weather. We've tried to transplant it to the U.S. which is huge, has very difficult weather and where much of our transport is done by plane and truck, both of which are more susceptible to interference by bad weather than is rail.
