What are JIC and JIT?

Long before millennials started talking in acronyms, such as FOMO and BRB, inventory-management teams were doing it. Theirs are JIC and JIT, to refer to inventory-management systems. JIC or just in case is when they maintain high inventory levels at a high cost, which helps in locations that are likely to witness supply-chain disruptions. This also helps with highly popular products that cannot be substituted. JIT or just in time is when companies take raw-material from their vendors as and when customers place orders. Companies had been moving from JIC to JIT because it is more cost efficient, but the pandemic reversed that trend to an extent.