Empty Shelves? – Understanding Supply Chains, Logistics, and Recovery Efforts…

The Conservative Treehouse ^ | 3/14/20

[LibWhacker]

Okay, not particularly well-written imho, but with a little careful reading and a little head-scratching it should help you get to your preferred store exactly when you should be there in order to avoid the empty shelves.

[Fester Chugabrew]

I would think a small percentage of the population hoards TP for a virus situation, so the tissue issue should not be on going. They have their stash.

[ConservativeDude]

if every store needed a full recovery order that would be 240 tractor-trailers (60 stores x 4 per store). ...”

I guess that’s why we are running out of toilet paper, too. Goodness!

[ConservativeDude]

very helpful actually, and very interesting....thanks for posting

[100American]

Thanks for your to me excellent write up, it explains a lot and also tells us why the President removed boundaries for other truckers to ship things that they do not normally or add to the capacity to do so.

Additionally as you said if you look at a disty warehouse they only have so much quantity on hand before their restock level kicks in and suffers from a lag in that link between them and the next link in the chain.

Amazon builds million SqFt warehouses for a reason and typically they are co located to Railroad service versus air freight as the volume is larger per rail car and there is no need to have a truck in between that source and the warehouse which crimps the hose as it were and slows the flow of goods (water)

[Hojczyk]

We can thank the media and CDC for the panic..

They close the schools and the grand parents have to take care of the kids..

This country has lost it mind..

[Buckeye McFrog]

I have always kept a stash of TP since riding out several blizzards while living in Michigan. I’m good. Did not need to participate in any TP riots.

[pnut22]

I think 4 trucks for a recovery is really optimistic. 4 general merchandise trucks maybe but to cover meat, produce, deli and dairy you would need a few more.

[DuncanWaring]

The last paragraph appears to be generally consistent with what I’m seeing in my area, in both local chain stores and Sam’s Club.

[Blood of Tyrants]

You have to think that panic buying will end soon. The refrigerator can only hold so much. Non-perishable foods can be stored in odd places but most people have a budget that they can’t squeeze much more out of for grocery items.

[lurk]

In other words, Scotty’s words of Captain, we’re giving it all she’s got, are in play.

There are only so many trucks, so many truck drivers, so many feet of warehouse, so many shelf stockers, so many hours in a day.

If everyone would just grab one pack of TP, this system stress would not occur.

[LibWhacker]

[Ratman0823]

There is, I suppose, a small upside to this panic buying. With the empty shelves, a lot of areas get a cleaning that they haven’t had in I don’t want to think about how long!

And the stores have sold off a lot of “extra” stock that ends up being tossed, which helps the landfills.

[Alberta's Child]

It’s a good piece, but it only focuses on the distribution end of the supply chain. Even if the distribution process was fully capable of delivering 40% more product to the end user tomorrow, there’s always the problem of producing it all fast enough to match the delivery process.

Think of a supply chain as a series of conveyor belts. You can make one belt bigger and operate it faster, but that doesn’t help unless the entire series of belts can process the materials at the same rate.

[Steely Tom]

I would think a small percentage of the population hoards TP for a virus situation, so the tissue issue should not be on going. They have their stash.

I've gotten in the habit of hoarding things over the year, because in my business it is hard to predict what my income will be from quarter to quarter.

There are lots of things you can safely hoard, if you have space. Cleaning supplies of all kinds, olive oil, aluminum foil, canned soup (I have a lot of that). Not to mention warm socks, beef stock, tomato paste, pasta, etc.

The only problem is that any time my wife feels the need to give someone a present (like because they gave her a present and she hadn't gotten anything for them) she just treats my pantry like a store, and grabs anything in sight. Once one person in a group of five gave her a present, so she handed out my entire supply of warm socks to the whole group because she didn't want to just give a gift to the one person who gave her one.

[2CAVTrooper]

I wish I could find that old sound bite of some logistics officer during a post Katrina news conference saying something along the lines of people watching too much Star Trek, in that we can’t push a button and supplies materialize out of thin air.

[TaxPayer2000]

Part of the problem is that most people are used to eating out. Now the stores need even more food to support the increased demand caused by people buying more food than normal from a grocery store in order to cook at home.

[Buckeye McFrog]

This is why Aldi stocks their stores with a limited assortment. The Albrecht brothers figured that out after WW II when we had bombed most of the German infrastructure into rubble. Limited selection = quicker, more efficient restocking.

[Buckeye McFrog]

Part of the problem is that most people are used to eating out. Now the stores need even more food to support the increased demand caused by people buying more food than normal from a grocery store in order to cook at home.

This is why Trump told the governors do NOT close fast-food drive thrus.

[bigbob]

Heh, finally a topic Mark “Sundance” Bradman the former Publix produce department manager actually knows something about.