It's already moving somewhat to India.
Slowly, but China 2025 made a lot of people fear it.
Is It Time to Rethink Globalized Supply Chains?
131–140 of 322 posts
Re: Is It Time to Rethink Globalized Supply Chains?
#132I feel like the problem is less that supply chains are globalized, and more that they aren't redundant. By that I mean, there's too much reliance on China as the primary producer/exporter for countless industries and products. Having just one nation account for such a large share of manufacturing introduces single points of failure. It would be wise to have multiple sources for any given good, especially if it's esse…
Spreading supply chains across multiple countries to achieve redundancy and avoid single points of failure would make them more global, not less.
I agree it's a good idea but we should be clear that we are talking about making things more global and more interdependent.
We should also avoid the impression that everyone depends entirely on China -- a lot of big companies already have global supply chains with some redundancy.
In any case, global supply chains can't withstand a global pandemic that is causing business to slow down in every major country in the world.
Re: Is It Time to Rethink Globalized Supply Chains?
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
In my experience, it's not that companies are choosing any one strategy over another. It's more that companies have no idea what their supply chain actually looks like. Only that the widgets show up at their loading dock every week, and that the shipments have always been reliable in the past, so that there's no reason to look any further. There are often strong disincentives, as well. Nike, for example, got themselv…
Is it possible some legislation requiring resilience and local-sourcing could be possible in this climate? - esp. given the political antipathy to China these days.
I sure get the feel that it would be, but I hope we get moving on that ASAP before this is over, because I suspect minds have only been temporarily opened on this matter. Before too long I suspect our old heuristics will reassert their dominance over logic on topics that are in any way associated with the identity of the person.
I am going to bookmark this thread in anticipation of this phenomenon.
"Nobody could have foreseen what would happen when the world’s second-largest economy went offline and completely shut down external logistics connections."
Exactly what they said about the housing bubble. Honestly, how many people on HN and elsewhere couldn't anticipate this? I think the main thing that has caught everyone by surprise is just how comically unprepared we are for this. And the overwhelming sentiment I've been getting from the memeplex is that this situation is entirely the fault of Trump, when he fired Obama's pandemic team. Not only is this not actually technically true, the idea or insinuation (dog-whistling) that the extension of that team would have mitigated this whole thing seems to be quite unlikely, to put it mildly. Oh yes, of course having this team in place would have improved things - but by how much, and under what counter-factual scenarios?
These are the discussions we need to have, but I don't think Western culture as it is is capable of having them. We need to wake up and realize the human ego is the root of all of these problems.
Re: Is It Time to Rethink Globalized Supply Chains?
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is it 100%. I work at a major financial institution and we invest ridiculous amounts of money, effort and, frankly, delay, in understanding our supply chain, its security posture and risk management model. It's a unbelievably gargantuan effort and if it weren't for the scary shit that we find all the time one could easily argue it's a waste.
What problems have you encountered that others should avoid?
Over the years, I have run into:
- Counterfeit components, like memory out of spec that creates scaled failures.
- Fake products from the channel.
- Fundamental mistruths with regard to how services are delivered.
- Poor operational practices for maintaining SLA, especially for off-shored services. Those ops folks will move mountains to meet the minimum standard of "up", but will allow problems to fester.
- Fraud. Fake on-site employees sending work back to a boiler room with people actually doing the work.
- Fraud. Named users actually being fake people sharing a credential. In one case, a colleague in a manufacturing case discovered this when he accidentally received a link to an open video stream of a MFA token.
- Fraud. Stuffing fake or inferior products into orders. Example: Order new laptops, find a bunch of refurbs in the pallets.
Basically, people suck and if you primarily make purchasing decisions based on price, and you care about what you are buying, you need to treat the counter-party as a potentially hostile actor and assume that you are going to be ripped off.
Re: Is It Time to Rethink Globalized Supply Chains?
#135It's time to rethink conducting business and trade with oppressive authoritarian and frankly communist countries. The world should not have to endure a pandemic every decade from countries that continues to suppress its people, its scientists its media. Enough is enough.
And to be clear, this is targeted at the country's government, and never its people. The government needs to be held accountable.
Re: Is It Time to Rethink Globalized Supply Chains?
#136My dad was in agriculture.
When I was a know-it-all college student I would complain about farm subsidies and how they're inefficient and unfair to tax payers, etc.
But he would mention that America should never have a food shortage because of them. We've never outsourced our food to China or OPEC.
And now I'm really seeing the wisdom in that. For essential goods, like food, medicine, maybe energy, it makes sense to keep some production local.
Re: Is It Time to Rethink Globalized Supply Chains?
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is it 100%. I work at a major financial institution and we invest ridiculous amounts of money, effort and, frankly, delay, in understanding our supply chain, its security posture and risk management model. It's a unbelievably gargantuan effort and if it weren't for the scary shit that we find all the time one could easily argue it's a waste.
> It's a unbelievably gargantuan effort Also applies to software supply chains: https://www.platformsecuritysummit.com/2019/speaker/sherman/ > Today’s software is largely assembled rather than written, and most of the assembly comes from open source components. The creation of components and their inclusion into applications creates a “supply chain” just like in conventional manufacturing. While physical supply chain…
We do that too. :)
Re: Is It Time to Rethink Globalized Supply Chains?
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's true so long as everyone is dependent on each other. If, everyone is dependent on one country, that doesn't hold China has a near monopoly on a lot of production. Countries that depend on them certainly won't go to war with them, but that doesn't hinder China from starting a war with those countries, and even gives them an advantage. And it doesn't stop dependent countries from warring with each other and that…
Trade goes both ways. The seller of goods is just as dependent on the exchange as the buyer. Nobody stays in business going to war with their customers. And there are truly very few products that cannot be sourced from alternates given a little time and money. I think the "global interdependence reduces war" hypothesis is pretty strong.
Oracle certainly seems to disagree here.
And if the seller is a monopoly on a critical good while the buyer is a tiny fraction of their business, the relationship is asymmetrical and the seller won't suffer nearly as much from a war.
Re: Is It Time to Rethink Globalized Supply Chains?
#139I feel like the problem is less that supply chains are globalized, and more that they aren't redundant. By that I mean, there's too much reliance on China as the primary producer/exporter for countless industries and products. Having just one nation account for such a large share of manufacturing introduces single points of failure. It would be wise to have multiple sources for any given good, especially if it's esse…
In my experience, it's not that companies are choosing any one strategy over another. It's more that companies have no idea what their supply chain actually looks like. Only that the widgets show up at their loading dock every week, and that the shipments have always been reliable in the past, so that there's no reason to look any further. There are often strong disincentives, as well. Nike, for example, got themselv…
It's called the invisible hand the free market for good reason.
Re: Is It Time to Rethink Globalized Supply Chains?
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is a third option. Apply the same regulations to the manufacture of all products sold in your country. You want to manufacture in China and sell in the US, that's fine -- but you have to do it in accordance with US environmental rules. That does two things. One, no more cost advantage to global manufacturing in whatever place has the least respect for the environment, which lets others compete better and remove…
There's a fourth option: close down all U.S. trade ports for a month once a year. No paperwork or other administrative headaches. "Just" a dry run once a year.
Chaos monkey, but for supply chain. I actually like it...it would make our systems more robust.