More shortages coming
July 26, 2021 9:30 PM   Subscribe

From ports to rail yards, global supply lines struggle amid virus outbreaks in the developing world Some back-to-school products could be hard to find for American consumers in the coming weeks.
posted by NotLost (36 comments total) 18 users marked this as a favorite
 
I think I speak for a lot of parents when I say:

Shit. I know I shoulda bought a spare Chromebook months ago.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 9:41 PM on July 26, 2021 [4 favorites]


In addition, Iphones may have shortages due to the recent catastrophic flooding in Henan Provence and the flooding of a factory, though the news on this seems mixed now that the damage was minimal to the factories themselves. South China Morning Post had a decent article on the major damage at one factory side while also saying not to expect delays but I didn't link to it because it had very very graphic videos of the flooding including people in extremely dangerous situations. In fact many of the articles including the wall street journal one had videos of the flooding (wsj is on the foxconn said it's fine and not to expect shortages side).
posted by AlexiaSky at 10:21 PM on July 26, 2021 [1 favorite]


And people are convinced that temporary high prices for goods affected by supply chain disruptions are a harbinger of hyperinflation. Never mind that the prices of many things are already coming back down. Perhaps it's less actually being convinced and more saying shit for ideological reasons.

The global just in time supply chain is great (in many ways) when things are running smoothly, but it's a fucking nightmare when things go wrong. Thankfully, many companies seem to be learning the lesson that there is such a thing as too little inventory after decades of taking it much too far.

Regardless of the changes made on that front, though, things are still going to be intermittently messed up until we get basically the entire world vaccinated.
posted by wierdo at 11:16 PM on July 26, 2021 [11 favorites]


If there are no novelty bets going on concerning the end date of the computer hardware shortage, I am somehow disappointed by humanity's failure to disappoint.
posted by BiggerJ at 1:03 AM on July 27, 2021 [1 favorite]


And people are convinced that temporary high prices for goods affected by supply chain disruptions are a harbinger of hyperinflation. Never mind that the prices of many things are already coming back down. Perhaps it's less actually being convinced and more saying shit for ideological reasons.

Since my Fox News watching dad has been making noise about inflation, I'm going to assume this is something the got from Fox News or other right wing media. Everything from the price of hamburger, to cars, to phones, etc. It's all Joe Biden's fault.
posted by Fleebnork at 4:20 AM on July 27, 2021 [3 favorites]


It's not crazy to expect some inflation after a huge govt stimulus but you notice they also blocked the minimum wage increase that would have offset the rising prices.
posted by subdee at 4:42 AM on July 27, 2021 [7 favorites]


An antiques show I was planning to attend next weekend has been canceled for supply chain issues -- can't get enough tents & tables.
posted by JanetLand at 6:07 AM on July 27, 2021


UK food supply chains ‘on the edge of failing', meat industry warns.
Retailers blame Brexit as food shortages sweep across Scotland's stores and UK facing ‘worst food shortages since the war’ due to Covid and Brexit.
posted by adamvasco at 6:35 AM on July 27, 2021 [4 favorites]


Missing from the article is any sense that moving to local or at least domestic production would be a good alternative.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:57 AM on July 27, 2021 [2 favorites]


Missing from the article is any sense that moving to local or at least domestic production would be a good alternative.

It's local food production in developed countries that have suffered the most from border restrictions, as the endless cheap supply of migrant farm labor is suddenly unavailable...
posted by xdvesper at 7:02 AM on July 27, 2021 [6 favorites]


I'm so old I remember when Just In Time inventory was going to be the magic bullet that saved US manufacturing. It didn't do that, but that didn't prevent further application of the same sort of "optimizations" to free up capital and squeeze slack out of organizations in the name of "efficiency."

An "efficient" organization with no "waste" is, as we have seen over and over and over in the last 18 months, one that has no surge capacity at all and is at risk of catastrophic failure if everything does not go exactly as planned. And people think they are better at planning than they really are.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 7:59 AM on July 27, 2021 [21 favorites]


An "efficient" organization with no "waste" is, as we have seen over and over and over in the last 18 months, one that has no surge capacity at all and is at risk of catastrophic failure if everything does not go exactly as plan. You described my last organization to a T. And we didn't make anything, but provided services. When a few people left and others had COVID childchilcare duty, ther was no one to pick up the slack.

On the supply chain side, after working hard to find swim lessons for my kids, the public pool abruptly closed due to lack of chlorine.
posted by CostcoCultist at 8:14 AM on July 27, 2021 [6 favorites]


And people think they are better at planning than they really are.

Since, above a certain level in most hierarchies, there is no negative impact from failing, they are just as good at planning as they need to be.
posted by GenjiandProust at 8:50 AM on July 27, 2021


It's just-in-time planning. That's when you don't waste time on inefficient disaster planning until after a crisis has started. Why tie up your planning capacity like that when you could invest it elsewhere?
posted by Western Infidels at 8:54 AM on July 27, 2021 [6 favorites]


Aardvark Cheeselog: “I'm so old I remember when Just In Time inventory was going to be the magic bullet that saved US manufacturing.”
“Why There are Now So Many Shortages (It's Not COVID)”—Wendover Productions, 01 June 2021
posted by ob1quixote at 9:00 AM on July 27, 2021 [2 favorites]


Neoliberal-capitalism worked for companies and wealthy until it didn't. Now what?
posted by interogative mood at 10:24 AM on July 27, 2021


adamvasco got in before me, but genuinely, feel free to compare yourself to the situation on Racist Transphobe Plague Island to make yourself feel better as I would like to see some benefit to someone from this omnishambles.
posted by Vortisaur at 10:44 AM on July 27, 2021 [2 favorites]


I'm so old I remember when Just In Time inventory was going to be the magic bullet that saved US manufacturing. It didn't do that, but that didn't prevent further application of the same sort of "optimizations" to free up capital and squeeze slack out of organizations in the name of "efficiency."

An "efficient" organization with no "waste" is, as we have seen over and over and over in the last 18 months, one that has no surge capacity at all and is at risk of catastrophic failure if everything does not go exactly as planned. And people think they are better at planning than they really are.


The very misunderstanding of Just In Time among critics (and apparently adherents) works in favor of the point they're trying to make. Funny how that works.

But even if we are to take it as a valid criticism, it is realistic to think that manufacturing across the board should be stockpiling at least 18 months worth (at least so far) of supplies and materials? To keep producing, in the event of a pandemic that could affect global supply chains?

I have a strange feeling that manufacturing before the age of JIT never actually worked that way.

Missing from the article is any sense that moving to local or at least domestic production would be a good alternative.

People in local/domenstic markets are just as vulnerable to Covid as people on the other side of the globe.
posted by 2N2222 at 11:00 AM on July 27, 2021 [1 favorite]


Yes, people in local markets are just as vulnerable to COVID. But you don't have as many potential points of failure along the chain. A large part of the issue right now is transportation across the globe.

In New Zealand we really felt the pinch. Small island, middle of the ocean, so they fall to the bottom of the list for a lot of manufacturers when they have to decide "where will I send this stuff?" A lot of shops such as Harvey Norman actually kept warehouses at Sydney Airport and would ship web orders from there to New Zealand, or keep a very small amount in store and do next day delivery from Sydney. Hundreds of flights per day from Sydney to Auckland, so what could go wrong? Of course now due to the COVID outbreak in Sydney it's about 3 flights a day and that causes some issues.

Last winter when I was shopping at Katmandu, one of the salespeople told me that supply lines were so befouled they literally did not know when or if they would get new stuff in for the summer. They did, but I get the sense that there's still a big question mark for many businesses.

This also creates a problem for smaller independent stores. I work with a New Zealand online yarn shop that handles a lot of imports. Stock is coming in just fine from the US and Asia, but they've had monthslong delays in shipments from Europe. On the bright side, people in NZ can't order those European yarns direct anymore so they're the only game in town...whenever that stock comes in.
posted by rednikki at 11:17 AM on July 27, 2021 [2 favorites]


The business-logistics aspect of this is fascinating, but I’m taken aback that there’s so little discussion of the pandemic when they keep talking about multiple cities being shut down by it. Maybe that’s in the linked articles? Even business news eventually has to recognize that the consumer end can’t run if the producer end is sick. Eventually?

This was jawdropping:
Union Pacific, the nation’s largest publicly traded railroad, halted all eastbound traffic from the ports of Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland and Tacoma, starting July 19, for at least one week. BNSF Railway, which boasts one of North America’s largest freight rail network, said it was reducing the flow of containers from Los Angeles and Long Beach for two weeks in what it called “a somewhat unprecedented” move.
My grandfathers both had a little engineer's experience with the railways, and the main impression they left me was the railways will keep rolling whatever the human cost. So TWO railroads being obliged to cancel service is one of those Not Fine signals.

Also, what’s happening to the crews of ships that are all off schedule and loitering offshore?
posted by clew at 11:35 AM on July 27, 2021 [6 favorites]


Vortisaur, for a relatively funny bit, I boggle regularly at the attention given to the "unexpected" difficulty of exporting made-in-England sandwiches to Paris. Not least because I suspect the news is turning off a lot of potential Parisian customers.
posted by clew at 11:38 AM on July 27, 2021


Honestly, the shortages are terrifying. We are seeing the leading edge of it in increased prices on food and other items, or limited-to-no availability. But you need to understand this is happening across every piece of every component of every manufacturing, logistics or delivery process at the same time.

The implications are concerning. Worse, it’s a systemic business process issue. Conversations about just-in-time versus just-in-case processes are happening, which is good. But it doesn’t fix the snarled supply chains, lack of containers or god even the people who died or were so sick with covid in critical industries they may never be able to return.

This is another article about the challenges we’re seeing today. I just recommend everyone who is able to have a small backstop of canned goods. Don’t go ham, just get a little bit at a time and build up a small reserve, up to six months, if you are able.

That’s not a “sky is falling” recommendation. It’s because we are so used to getting what we want, whenever we want for the last 30 years and that paradigm may be changing. The purpose of having some extra food on hand isn’t just for you either, by the way. It could be your neighbor or friend who is economically imperiled without access to food to get through a short spell. And properly managed, you rotate out the old or donate it to a local org that can distribute to those in need in your community.
posted by glaucon at 12:44 PM on July 27, 2021 [8 favorites]



Also, what’s happening to the crews of ships that are all off schedule and loitering offshore?

You can see them lined up off the Port of Long Beach. There are always a few ships waiting - maybe in the 5 range (IDK?) but there are at least 20 now that are visible from the coast line. I'm sure the crews just sit on the ships waiting, just like in other jobs.

I'm not surprised rail lines are backed up. There's not that many of them crisscrossing the mostly empty western US from the many western ports.
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:57 PM on July 27, 2021 [1 favorite]


But even if we are to take it as a valid criticism, it is realistic to think that manufacturing across the board should be stockpiling at least 18 months worth (at least so far) of supplies and materials?

That's a complete straw man. Nobody is arguing that level of stock should be common. Even in the current situation, that's proven completely unnecessary. A month's worth, along with not assuming that you can actually get away with cancelling orders for long lead time inputs would have been enough to minimize disruption.
posted by wierdo at 1:46 PM on July 27, 2021 [4 favorites]


"The idea behind the Union Pacific and BNSF actions is that a temporary pause will clear their backlogs, just in time for the annual shipping season peak. But in the short term, the actions effectively shoved the problem back onto the western ports."

Can someone explain how not shipping goods eastwards from the ports on the west coast is helping make things better?
posted by Canageek at 2:23 PM on July 27, 2021


Can someone explain how not shipping goods eastwards from the ports on the west coast is helping make things better?

From my read of the article, it's not that they aren't shipping anything along their lines, it's that they are over capacity in their own storage yards, and are not picking up anything (increasing the stacking at the shipyards), but are clearing their own backlogs.
posted by The_Vegetables at 2:32 PM on July 27, 2021 [2 favorites]


If their lines out of their storage yards to stores/factories are already running at capacity, then moving more stuff into those yards won't increase the amount that gets out to stores, could decrease it (staff time spent accepting as well as shipping out), and will probably get the yards even further from first-in-first-out as stuff gets stuck because storage is full. Then places that need to get material A before they can use material B have a storage problem with B while they're waiting for A. Logistics is really hard!
posted by clew at 5:31 PM on July 27, 2021 [2 favorites]


I got a new job in June that was supposed to start June 14. But I couldn't start until I got my laptop from BigFruit - presumably China. Because of supply-chain issues that delayed my laptop I wasn't able to start until July 6th.

Last Saturday night, Wolfster and I met up at our favorite sushi restaurant. About half of the food we asked for wasn't available and the server explained that there was a lot of delay shipping things from Japan. Hopefully not the fish!
posted by bendy at 6:22 PM on July 27, 2021


About half of the food we asked for wasn't available and the server explained that there was a lot of delay shipping things from Japan. Hopefully not the fish!

You'd be surprised. Alaskan salmon caught in PNW are sent to China for deboning and then shipped back to the US for consumption because it costs 20 cents per pound in China versus $1 per pound in the US. Old article from 2005, but there are numerous examples: Australian scallops being shipped to Thailand for shucking then back to Australia for consumption. And shipping today has gotten a lot cheaper since 2005, due to massive oversupply after shipping companies went mad building ships during the 2008 spike - today's shipping rates are about 1/3 what they were in 2008, and still cheaper than they were in 2005.

Shipping frozen food long distances is ridiculously cheap, and customers demand the lowest price, so here we are...
posted by xdvesper at 9:21 PM on July 27, 2021 [1 favorite]


>> Missing from the article is any sense that moving to local or at least domestic
>> production would be a good alternative.
>
> People in local/domenstic markets are just as vulnerable to Covid as people
> on the other side of the globe.

Sure, but the transportation leg is greatly reduced so when product is made it can actually make it to the PoS.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:43 AM on July 28, 2021


So I’m sort of getting it, but I have to say that the concept of product suppliers being off-line causing the supply chain to be oversubscribed is a little weird. With fewer products being shipped I would expect the opposite.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:54 PM on July 28, 2021


So I’m sort of getting it, but I have to say that the concept of product suppliers being off-line causing the supply chain to be oversubscribed is a little weird. With fewer products being shipped I would expect the opposite.

I think one issue is that every person only sees a tiny portion of the global logistics system.

One plausible chain of events where a supplier going offline could cause an overloaded supply chain is because container freight is two-way - so say if production of manufactured goods stops in Asia for a month, they stop sending ships laden with those goods to Australia, then suddenly there's no containers or ships in Australia for when farmers here want to export grain and meat back out to Asia. Like, either the grain and meat producer pays twice as much for shipping (to get empty containers and ships to Australia) or they compete up the price of the few ships and containers that made it across from suppliers that weren't shut down.

Also, a lot of airfreight is now being replaced by sea freight (since flight volumes are down, the cargo area on passenger flights is now not available for normal airfreight operations), or, conversely, because of delays in manufacturing, a lot of sea freight is now being replaced by air freight to meet deadlines. These sorts of issues happen normally even without the Covid and Suez disruption - you wouldn't believe what goes into emergency airfreight, we've shipped goods that cost way more in shipping than what they cost to buy, simply because they were only available from that one location.
posted by xdvesper at 11:07 PM on July 28, 2021 [1 favorite]


I do chemical plant design, 20+ years now and I am seeing supply chain issues for basic lego like tanks, piping etc. that still feel a bit insane relative to what I consider norms. 16 week material at 60 weeks, quotes being honored for 5 days (instead of typ 30 or 60 and a lot of the time I could call them at 90 or 120 and say "we couldn't get our shit together, can you hold your price" and more often than not they'd say yes)

activated carbon has some hiccups in the supply chain along with other basic treatment chemicals; environmental services are going to be limping along for a while.
posted by hearthpig at 4:50 PM on July 29, 2021 [3 favorites]


Sunlit uplands on Plague Island.
Food worth thousands thrown away because of Brexit labour shortages.
One farm manager said this is because Eastern European workers, who were usually doing the job, had not been available since Brexit.
posted by adamvasco at 7:42 AM on August 4, 2021


Guess the Brits are all anticipating this
With new Brexit checks set to come into effect from 1st October, the food shortages look set to worsen. From that date, animal and plant products imported into the UK from the EU will require extra paperwork and border checks. The government hopes these checks will be “smooth and efficient”, but based on how Brexit has been handled since the referendum in June 2016, those reassurances aren’t particularly comforting.
posted by adamvasco at 6:29 AM on August 11, 2021


China Starts Shutting Down World’s Third-Busiest Port
Your Merry Christmas junk may be effected
This is the second recent shutdown of a Chinese port due to the coronavirus, after the closure of Yantian port in Shenzhen from late May for about a month. That led goods to back up in factories and storage yards and also likely lifted soaring freight rates, which are at record levels and a source of inflation.
The fear is that this new disruption will further strain shipping and supplies of goods, dampening growth and driving up prices. An extended shuttering at Ningbo could be especially painful for the world economy because seaborne trade usually rises toward the end of the year as companies ship Christmas and holiday products.
posted by adamvasco at 5:14 AM on August 12, 2021


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