Fascinating thread about the current supply chain + labor market conundrum that's squeezing many manufacturers.
TL;DR: It's not the lack of workers, it's that JIT manufacturing culture that makes recovering from disruption nigh impossible.
TL;DR: It's not the lack of workers, it's that JIT manufacturing culture that makes recovering from disruption nigh impossible.
https://twitter.com/VioletWanderers/status/1448786440138153985
IIRC it was Dell that really popularized the JIT manufacturing philosophy, back in the days when computers were purchased like cars — you hoped someone had the configuration you wanted in stock.
This was also the era when the best way to get a deal on a Mac was waiting for Apple to announce a new model… then waiting 6 months for them to auction off a huge pile of the old model at cut rates.
Today, computers from the manufacturer are likely to be assembled, to spec based on your order vs pulled from a warehouse. I can understand why that shift was earth-shaking in a high-cost-per-item industry; getting stuck with a pile of old Performa 400s was cripplingly expensive.
But now that it's spread everywhere, and specialization means that few manufacturers have the ability to produce their product without a constant stream of inputs from other manufacturers, welp… It's a Systems Problem Nightmare.
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