NKG
Nkg
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Yes
OneGoodEar
Former team member
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It might take awhile for some stores since there's a shortage of plexiglass.
Last edited:
Planosss
User friendly.
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There’s a fucking shortage of everything. The most powerful fucking country in the world. What a fucking joke.
Tessa120
Current game: Elex
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It's a waste of resources to have things made in such large quantities that the apocalypse would have to happen to use it all. Stuff degrades, stuff becomes obsolete due to technology improvements, stuff no longer meets code.
Same with the machinery needed to make it, machinery needs maintenance and parts even if it's not being turned on as well as updating to new code standards, so having the capability to immediately manufacture items in apocalypse quantities is also wasteful. Think of all the motor oil to keep the machines that will only turn on during an apocalypse working, how it's going to waste. Think about all the things in landfills that were new but degraded due to age and became unusable.
Apocalypse size storage is not a fair yardstick. Manufacturing that many goods and leaving them to collect dust and degrade for decades isn't feasible. Securing land to build all those storages isn't feasible and will inflate other real estate prices.
A fair yardstick is the ability to ramp up manufacturing asap and the foresight to have a transportation plan in place that will get raw goods to manufacturers. I don't know how long it takes to make various goods but we're not too far into this
Example, toilet paper, I'm sure it's wood based paper, so not only do you have the toilet paper, you have the company making the chemicals to turn wood to paper, you have the loggers cutting the trees (probably clear cut to meet demand, goodbye forest), you have the logging trucks bringing the logs out of the woods to manufacturers. Packaging is plastic, so the toilet paper company has to also get supplies from companies making plastic, squabble with other companies making goods that need plastic to get a decent amount of what's available, and they have to wait on their chemical suppliers, and the companies making dye to mark the packaging. And then all the various goods from in the ground origin to packaging the final product has to be moved from one manufacturer to the next step's manufacturer in a hurry so the production line doesn't stop.
That's the fair assessment. Let's see how well the nation does.
Exactly. You can't just increase production to 3x normal in a day. That's most likely not even possible to do within a year for lots of industries. Every single aspect from getting the resources to production to transporting and storage and distribution of that product, has to be increased by that much. Good luck doing that in a reasonable timeframe even when there isn't a pandemic causing every one of those aspects to be heavily strained.
Tessa120
Current game: Elex
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3x is crazy high, yes. However probably very, very few manufacturers that operate on a regional or national scale are already at max production during normal demand. There would be redundancies built in place in case a machine breaks and they have to maintain near normal demand while getting it fixed, or if there's an increase in demand because of that new hot item consumers want. But increased production means increased costs to the company, so no need to have anything more than redundancies during normal demand years.
Those redundancies are going to be what gets things on the shelf during a hoarding period. They'll turn on the backup machine and run a 24/7 operation, eat the costs for operation and payroll since they know there will be higher than normal sales to empty warehouses. Pharmaceutical companies operate on the same principle, a big delay will likely be getting the raw goods to form the molecules that make the active ingredient in medications. After that is making the medication (inert ingredients and manufacturing) and needles for injectables, packaging (paper, foil seals, plastic for the bottles), transportation and whatever else is involved. Probably ramping up drug reps that go to doctors' offices, lost jobs means lost health insurance, so doctors are probably blowing through samples.
And food production. All the steps needed to get the canned corn on the shelf.
So yeah, the yardstick is ramping up to keep a steady flow of goods that will meet basic needs, even if it's lower than consumers are used to. That there will be sufficient amounts of food on the shelf for people to eat, that there will be a sufficient amount of toilet paper if the hoarders aren't so bad, that when COVID-19 is well enough understood any medications or vaccines can be produced relatively quickly, that our transportation industry has enough vehicles and operators to ship a higher quantity of goods than normal in a quick time.
And something to consider, all these limits have been tested small scale, and refined when something fell short. There's been a lot of natural disasters and some man made disasters that affected large areas, requiring a higher than normal flow of supplies into the area, and a higher than normal rate of replenishment to warehouses. Places hit by major hurricanes or wildfires or major earthquakes where people lost homes and businesses lost on hand goods to damage needed an immediate influx of food, clean water, pharmaceuticals and first aid, toilet paper, clothes, cleaning supplies. Hopefully the little tests will help the country pass the big test.
Those redundancies are going to be what gets things on the shelf during a hoarding period. They'll turn on the backup machine and run a 24/7 operation, eat the costs for operation and payroll since they know there will be higher than normal sales to empty warehouses. Pharmaceutical companies operate on the same principle, a big delay will likely be getting the raw goods to form the molecules that make the active ingredient in medications. After that is making the medication (inert ingredients and manufacturing) and needles for injectables, packaging (paper, foil seals, plastic for the bottles), transportation and whatever else is involved. Probably ramping up drug reps that go to doctors' offices, lost jobs means lost health insurance, so doctors are probably blowing through samples.
And food production. All the steps needed to get the canned corn on the shelf.
So yeah, the yardstick is ramping up to keep a steady flow of goods that will meet basic needs, even if it's lower than consumers are used to. That there will be sufficient amounts of food on the shelf for people to eat, that there will be a sufficient amount of toilet paper if the hoarders aren't so bad, that when COVID-19 is well enough understood any medications or vaccines can be produced relatively quickly, that our transportation industry has enough vehicles and operators to ship a higher quantity of goods than normal in a quick time.
And something to consider, all these limits have been tested small scale, and refined when something fell short. There's been a lot of natural disasters and some man made disasters that affected large areas, requiring a higher than normal flow of supplies into the area, and a higher than normal rate of replenishment to warehouses. Places hit by major hurricanes or wildfires or major earthquakes where people lost homes and businesses lost on hand goods to damage needed an immediate influx of food, clean water, pharmaceuticals and first aid, toilet paper, clothes, cleaning supplies. Hopefully the little tests will help the country pass the big test.
