Remystifying Supply Chains • Hacker News Board

Re: Remystifying Supply Chains

#11

Post by roenxi » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 12:46 PM UTC

foxhop wrote: post #10

I'm also following supply chain: https://youtu.be/MoH7S_qLlIg As energy prices spike acrossed the world we quickly understand how the current Agricultural system is not fit as greenhouses in the Netherlands are forced to reduce operations due to the parabolic inflation in natural gas. The money printers go brrrrrrr in all countries, and having already dropped interest rates its clear by that isn't going to stop price…

China produces a lot of coal, it is nearly the world's largest coal producer by an order of magnitude [0]. Although supply chains are complex things and their ... whatever they think they are doing ... with Australia might be a contributing factor, it also might not be.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_coal_prod...

Re: Remystifying Supply Chains

#12

Post by roenxi » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 12:56 PM UTC

There is also a minor point to highlight: the risk of over-regulation. Something that was notable in the early days of the COVID pandemic was that supply chains react poorly to shocks when they were not allowed to respond. Shelves bare of food while farmers smashed eggs, style of thing. And of course the CDC blocking any working COVID tests in early 2020 will be remembered for a long time.

People have a tendency not to break laws, even in an emergency. Regulations need to let these businesses move quickly in the event of a supply chain crisis.

Re: Remystifying Supply Chains

#13

Post by password4321 » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 2:51 PM UTC

rjbwork wrote: post #4

skybrian wrote: post #3

It seems like we have lots of easily accessible public data about the pandemic and relatively little about supply chain issues. The supply chain articles I’ve read have lots of anecdotes but little in the way of charts and graphs. Maybe that’s part of the problem?

J.P. Morgan put out a really great and fairly detailed article on supply chains and just the general state of the world from a financier's perspective a couple of weeks ago. https://am.jpmorgan.com/us/en/asset-management/institutional...

discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28687992 356 points 348 comments

Re: Remystifying Supply Chains

#14

Post by tintinmovie » Sat, Oct 09, 2021, 8:09 PM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #11

foxhop wrote: post #10

I'm also following supply chain: https://youtu.be/MoH7S_qLlIg As energy prices spike acrossed the world we quickly understand how the current Agricultural system is not fit as greenhouses in the Netherlands are forced to reduce operations due to the parabolic inflation in natural gas. The money printers go brrrrrrr in all countries, and having already dropped interest rates its clear by that isn't going to stop price…

China produces a lot of coal, it is nearly the world's largest coal producer by an order of magnitude [0]. Although supply chains are complex things and their ... whatever they think they are doing ... with Australia might be a contributing factor, it also might not be. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_coal_prod...

That being said Australia appears to be the world's largest producer of bituminous coal which is considered "higher-quality" than brown coal. Low ash, sulphur, and carbonate coal is ideal for power generation as it results in less boiler slag. My guess is power generation plants require consistent quality of coal, and therefore if China power plants have only access to brown coal, that could pose a problem.

Statistics (Blocked behind paywall, but can inspect element and remove blur filter) https://knoema.com/atlas/topics/Energy/Coal/Production-of-bi...

Re: Remystifying Supply Chains

#15

Post by xyzzy21 » Sun, Oct 10, 2021, 2:07 PM UTC

All true. NOBODY has or had any clue about the dynamics of JIT supply chains.

If you are an engineer: the assumptions were that they were linear and time-invariant when in fact they are highly nonlinear and time-variant.

NOBODY with an MBA (unless they are engineers first) has ANY CLUE about dynamical systems, Lyanpunov stability, differential equations, etc. that actually describe how JIT supply chains work when you vary volume greater than ~1%-5%.

BTW the same can be said of financial networks, electronic bourses/markets and high frequency trading. Same problems. Same ignorance. Same risks nobody understands or sees.