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Abstract
Literature has reported 31 benefits obtained by companies after a successful JIT implementation. However, this research reduces the list by means of a data reduction technique to identify those essential benefits that must be pursued. The 31 benefits are integrated in a questionnaire that is administered to 144 production managers in maquiladoras in Mexico to measure the extent to which they are obtained according to respondents. One the one hand, a validation process and descriptive analysis are carried out for every benefit by considering their median values as a measure of central tendency and interquartile range values as a measure of dispersion. On the other hand, data reduction was achieved by means of a factor analysis based on principal components and varimax rotation. Four main factors related to JIT benefits are identified after the factor analysis, which explain 67.27 % of total variance of data. Identified factors concern inventory management, production process, human resources, and economic benefits.
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1 Department of Industrial Engineering and Manufacturing, Institute of Engineering and Technology, Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, México
2 Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of la Rioja, Logroño, La Rioja, Spain
3 Department of Teaching, Educational Organization and Special Education, National Distance Education University (UNED), Madrid, Spain