The shelves are getting empty

Laskar

Would you kindly?
Founder
I thought this deserved its own thread.

It's becoming widespread in all industries, for example, nearby factory had to cut down the production of their household appliances because suppliers can't supply enough digital indicators, now they are doing a crash program to make old school analogue one and discovered that despite still making them less than a decade ago, it's basically a lost art to them.

A big factor in current decline is not just over reliance on overseas suppliers, but also taking infrastructure and knowledge base among domestic supplier for granted and thus skimping on their maintenance, all in the name of big line going up in the quarterly reports to the shareholders. people with critical industrial skills have been ''disappearing'' for years and the process entered the tipping point during the kung-flu closedowns, same with infrastructure as people found out the hard way that you can keep a rundown facility running by jury-rigging stuff, but once it is closed for some time, it's terribly hard to get it running again. I read few months ago about a factory making specialist industrial lubricants, burning down (underfunded maintenance), it cowered approximately half the needs in North America, there is no one to take up the slack and it is unlikely to be rebuilt, due to too low profit margins.
So. I work in a warehouse that's at the end of the supply chain. Any of the major parts suppliers has to drive at least an hour to deliver parts to us, and management doesn't like stockpiling spare parts since we lost a warehouse in a flood. We also don't have a parts girl. In some of the other places I've worked, we have a dedicated employee who runs into town when we need parts. If we need something, we order it ourselves and handle the billing.

So I've been in a pretty good position to see how everything in the catalog is affected by the shortages. Bearings, sprockets, chains, sensors. It all takes longer to get in than it used to, and half the time an order arrives with only half the parts. The rest has to wait until it gets in. We just got a bucket of grease delivered to us, and nobody knew what it was for. Turns out, the guy who ordered it quit a few months before it got here, and he probably ordered it back in November.

I'm not seeing a catastrophic breakdown in the supply chain... but I'm not in the position to see it coming. I'm in the wrong industry for that. But I hope some management types wake the fuck up and realize that ordering shit from overseas and hoping it'll be here the next day isn't a good way to run a business.
 

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder
'Just in time' logistics and off-shoring to China has completely fucked the American business model and supply chain.

The Gen X'ers, Centennials, Millennials, and Gen Y are going to be paying for Greatest Gen/Boomer short-sightedness and base greed for a long time to come.

Home gardens and chicken coups are going to make a big comeback I expect.
 

Cherico

Well-known member
'Just in time' logistics and off-shoring to China has completely fucked the American business model and supply enerin.

The Gen X'ers, Centennials, Millennials, and Gen Y are going to be paying for Greatest Gen/Boomer short-sightedness and base greed for a long time to come.

Home gardens and chicken coups are going to make a big comeback I expect.


Potatoes are pretty easy to grow.
 

LordsFire

Internet Wizard
'Just in time' logistics and off-shoring to China has completely fucked the American business model and supply chain.

The Gen X'ers, Centennials, Millennials, and Gen Y are going to be paying for Greatest Gen/Boomer short-sightedness and base greed for a long time to come.

Home gardens and chicken coups are going to make a big comeback I expect.

Off-shoring anything but cheap toy production to China was a bad idea.

'Just in time' logistics should be better understood though; many companies have taken it too far, but there are good reasons for using some of its principles, mostly around avoiding waste. When cutting costs and 'avoiding waste' goes to the point where you have no safety margin, that's when you've got real problems, and that's the sort of situation we've ended up in here.
 

Cherico

Well-known member
Off-shoring anything but cheap toy production to China was a bad idea.

'Just in time' logistics should be better understood though; many companies have taken it too far, but there are good reasons for using some of its principles, mostly around avoiding waste. When cutting costs and 'avoiding waste' goes to the point where you have no safety margin, that's when you've got real problems, and that's the sort of situation we've ended up in here.

The problem with china is that the wrong people won the civil war.
 

Bacle

When the effort is no longer profitable...
Founder
Potatoes are pretty easy to grow.
Both yes and no.

Done it two years I a row, and I can say that potato's are more finicky than many think.

They do not do well with too much heat or arid conditions, need loose soils so the potatoes can actually grow (clay rich soils are not good for potatoes), and have issues with giving you lots of seed potatoes for everyone big enough to eat.

Potatoes might be ok as an year round indoor crop, if you can afford the energy bill for the lights.

I recommend squashs and pumpkins; planting some fruit trees in your yard is also a good idea, even if the payoff is longer.

Also, tomatoes and chilies are good for home gardens, as are asparagus if the climate is right.

We need fewer green lawns, more veggie home veggie gardens and home-grow kits.

Green roofs/garden roofs are another possibility for those in apt buildings and even some chains are embracing growing food on premise.

The short and more direct the supply chain for your food, and most things really, the better.
 

ATP

Well-known member
It seems,that either Biden is incopetent,or Kamala is trying to get her revolution.Maybe both ?
 

The Original Sixth

Well-known member
Founder
I thought this deserved its own thread.


So. I work in a warehouse that's at the end of the supply chain. Any of the major parts suppliers has to drive at least an hour to deliver parts to us, and management doesn't like stockpiling spare parts since we lost a warehouse in a flood. We also don't have a parts girl. In some of the other places I've worked, we have a dedicated employee who runs into town when we need parts. If we need something, we order it ourselves and handle the billing.

So I've been in a pretty good position to see how everything in the catalog is affected by the shortages. Bearings, sprockets, chains, sensors. It all takes longer to get in than it used to, and half the time an order arrives with only half the parts. The rest has to wait until it gets in. We just got a bucket of grease delivered to us, and nobody knew what it was for. Turns out, the guy who ordered it quit a few months before it got here, and he probably ordered it back in November.

I'm not seeing a catastrophic breakdown in the supply chain... but I'm not in the position to see it coming. I'm in the wrong industry for that. But I hope some management types wake the fuck up and realize that ordering shit from overseas and hoping it'll be here the next day isn't a good way to run a business.

Assuming you're in the west or get your stuff from the West Coast, it's probably the massive backlog at the Californian ports.


It's so bad, toy companies are paying four times more than they would for shipping right now. Between the surge in American demand the past year, American consumption, AND the Wuhan restrictions, we simply can't get enough in. We're actually looking at a toy shortage this year. Container ships off the Coast of California are so thick, there's no more anchor points left. They're having to drift along the coast.
 

bintananth

behind a desk
I doubt corporate managers will change their ways. If they don't outsource to China then they will set up factories in Vietnam or something.
I'd prefer Vietnamese Communists to whatever the hell the Chinese are up to.

They actually went "you know what, you've gone too far", overthrew a neighbouring Communist regime, and restored a Monarchy. They're reasonable.

They also hate China, for what that's worth.
 

The Whispering Monk

Well-known member
Osaul
My local FLGS is also a kids toy store, and they traditionally do a HUGE amount of business at Christmas. Like most retailers, Black Friday to New Years is how they pay for their year.

They've smelled what's going on in the shipping arena and teh fact that a LOT won't be available on time for the holidays. So...they ordered their Christamas stock in Spring and early Summer. They were not going to rely on their distributors being able to get enough stock for everyone.

I have a feeling we may see a LOT of closures as a result if stores aren't able to get enough stock to meet their needs.
 

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