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The claim about leading JIT does seem a bit ridiculous, given JIT manufactoring grew out of the Toyata Production System[1] which encompases Kaizen, Kanban and similar.

All of which was pioneered decades before Tesla existed.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Production_System

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I learned that as Toyotism.

EDIT: Another therm for that is "Lean manufacturing" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing

Lean manufacturing works right up to the point where one of your vendors gives you a bad part. Your choice is to either shut down a line or have excess backup supplies at which point there's no need to have been lean.

I'm not sure how it helps to have a backup supplies of bad parts?

It should be obvious that quality control across the entire supply chain is vital to make lean work -- and indeed that is how Toyota and others does it: They work very closely with suppliers.

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