Just in time shipping and your family’s survival

[Anon21456]

Re: Just in time shipping and your family’s survival

The whole world was depending on the impossible -- programmers finding a date.

[Techdread]

Re: Just in time shipping and your family’s survival

Abacus here we come
Everything is energy, EVERYTHING.
Change is the only constant in the whole universe. We Need a new inexhaustible energy source very soon or we go the way of the Mayans, Hittites and other cultures that ate and breed themselves into extinction. By dead reckoning (no pun intended) I think we have 2 generations left (50 - 65 years)
Over to Starving Steve and Don for deeper thoughts

Energy in this universe is free, we just have not got the technology to tap it.

[ASH]

Re: Just in time shipping and your family’s survival

Thanks to all who responded to my question.

[lakedaemonian]

Re: Just in time shipping and your family’s survival

It WAS much ado about "nothing". It's not that there wasn't a legitimate issue to deal with. It was all the hype, the lawyers, the newfound consultants, and the creation of an entire "doomsday" industry around the issue that EJ, myself and some others have scorned in previous posts on this site. Fact is the issue itself would have been addressed by the companies and professiionals quietly and competently without all the "rock-stars" and groupies piling on and raising the costs because of course they had to get their cut of the cash.

It's the mania behaviour that was so objectionable...thankfully Y2K had a firm "best-before date" that brought the mania to an instant and undeniable end. One of the biggest idiots, as I recall, was a prominent Y2K consultant, a favourite with the media for his doomsday pronouncements, who owned the rights to "Y2K.com" [or some similar web address he used]. During the mania phase he was offered multiple $millions to sell that web address, and he refused it. Needless to say in January the value of the site address plunged, and I don't think we've ever heard from him again...:p

I guess Al Gore learned from Y2K.....focus on the apocalyptic end STATE, avoid the apocalyptic end DATE, develop perpetual revenue streams....no expiration date on the franchise! woohoo!

[dcarrigg]

Re: Just in time shipping and your family’s survival

Inventories are still held. But at places other than at the end user. If the change is gradual, people will adapt, and inventory points will shift down the chain. However, if the change is sudden (think Katrina type events -- on a slightly wider scale) then the JIT systems may not be able to cope.

Katrina type events, that can to some extent be predicted do allow for evacuations to areas where the system is expected to be functional under the additional population burden. However, the system's ability to cope with events of that scale on a wider basis is suspect. I am just talking about North America and Europe here. In the ROW, JIT has not penetrated to a similar extent.

Rajiv,

What do you think about RFID and other modern supply chain management technologies playing into the JIT mentality. It would seem to me that with a decent SQL database, sufficient memory and processing power, and RFID interfacing with the above providing real time data at checkout, JIT would be an obvious outcome.

That being said, I am no expert in supply chain managment.

[Rajiv]

Re: Just in time shipping and your family’s survival

JIT was a logical development from the computerization of inventory and manufacturing management -- though JIT predates computerization -- here is some of the history of JIT

As regards RFID, on the face of it, it appears to be a good tool for inventory management. However, with the widespread use of credit cards and debit cards in purchasing, there are privacy issues that crop up immediately -- of course, cash purchases are not affected.

[grapejelly]

Re: Just in time shipping and your family’s survival

good reasons to have food and water stored in sufficient quantities, along with life's daily necessities, in event of an extended supply chain interruption...

[GRG55]

Re: Just in time shipping and your family’s survival

I guess Al Gore learned from Y2K.....focus on the apocalyptic end STATE, avoid the apocalyptic end DATE, develop perpetual revenue streams....no expiration date on the franchise! woohoo!

I have been musing about this off and on...wondering if "climate change" has become the next [durable] secular global religion, thus leading to "perpetual" revenue streams for the archbishops like Gore, or if instead it is simply another mania that has reached its inevitable exhaustion stage as evidenced by what just happened in Copenhagen...:confused:

[These are larger political questions, quite separate and apart from the science and the debate around same, imo]

[Rajiv]

Re: Just in time shipping and your family’s survival

On the topic of truckers going under, there is now this -- Arrow Trucking suspends operations

Arrow Trucking Co., the 61-year-old Tulsa-based flatbed carrier, has suspended operations indefinitely, laying off employees and stranding scores of drivers around the country by cancelling fuel credit cards, company employees and drivers said.

After closing down the company phone system Tuesday morning and not accepting cell phone messages throughout the day, the company issued a statement from CEO Doug Pielsticker at 6:21 p.m.

“The company has been in negotiations with its principal lender,” Pielsticker said.

“Those negotiations are continuing, but the lender has elected to proceed with securing its collateral. The company is communicating with several interested parties and continues to seek a prompt resolution.”

One of Arrow’s lenders is Daimler Financial Services, which owns the company’s Freightliner trucks.

Beginning just before noon Tuesday, callers to Arrow’s west Tulsa offices were greeted with a recorded message: “Drivers, if you’re in Freightliner KW, please take your truck to the nearest Freightliner shop. Call this hot line number to Daimler, (877) 294-9679. They will arrange for you a bus ticket home.”

A spokesman for Daimler said the company is offering stranded drivers a bus ticket home or $200 in cash.

But many drivers didn’t have enough gas to make it to a Freightliner shop, Tulsa or even their next delivery.

“I’m shut down near Cheyenne, Wyo.,” Arrow driver Denny Carter said by phone. “They asked me to bring the truck and load into Tulsa, but I don’t have fuel to do it. I’ll be taking the truck to a Kenworth dealership in Cheyenne.”

Employees at Arrow’s corporate offices at 4230 S. Elwood Ave. were told by senior executives to clean out their desks and go home just after 8 a.m. Tuesday.

“This may be about the only phone at the company that’s working,” said a female employee who did not wish to be identified. “We’ve been told to pack up and go home.
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Arrow Trucking's web site is no longer to be found.

From archive.org

Founded in 1948 and headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Arrow Trucking Company is one of the country's largest and most financially sound flatbed motor carriers.
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With terminals at strategic locations across the nation, Arrow offers Flatbed, Heavy Haul, Specialized, LTL and Brokerage Services to our customers with a fleet of 1400 tractors and over 3000 trailers.
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With a wide diversity of service capabilities we are positioned to supply the right equipment, at the right time, at the right place – anywhere in the continental 48 states, as well as Mexico and Canada.

[strittmatter]

Re: Just in time shipping and your family’s survival

http://www.topix.com/forum/business/...LM52QLQAR7RBA1

Here is a link to an ongoing discussion forum about Arrow. Most people posting here are former employees, industry insiders, families of stranded drivers seeking answers and help.

Overall tone sounds disgustingly "modern times".

:mad:

[mooncliff]

Re: Just in time shipping and your family’s survival

It's been oft repeated on iTulip (including by EJ) that Y2k was much ado about nothing. Would anyone care to elaborate on this? As I experienced it, a lot of programmers (including my wife) worked on a lot of legacy code in advance, and consequently very little was left unpatched to break. I don't remember a lot of end-of-the-world hoopla about Y2k, but then again, I didn't spend much time around doomers back in 2000. So, when people talk about Y2k as being a 'hoax' -- do you really mean that there was no potential for critical systems to break if nothing was patched, or do you mean that because the potential problems were so straight-forward to remedy in advance, such concern as was voiced was overwrought?

Well, yes, not much happened in Y2K.

But "hoax" would mean that most who were warning about it knew there was no risk, but warned anyway (presumably to make money) and knew that all the computer systems worldwide would function fine. But no one really knew what was going to happen. After all, computers in the late '90s had so many bugs and viruses, causing, for example, our entire office of 250 people to be paralyzed for an entire afternoon (no date rollover necessary), it did not seem at all far fetched to think that multiple rollover errors might cause serious problems.

This date rollover problem did not end in 2000.
http://www.physorg.com/news82300230.html

Or how about this?
October 29, 2009

Two months ago, the Microsoft Windows-based computers at the U.S. Department of Interior received a software patch, rebooted, then a distorted electronic handshake created a corrupted stream of data. The machines misinterpreted data from field instruments as a massive earthquake in Northern California...
http://www.physorg.com/news175270685.html

On the Friday before Katrina, I showed many people the Scientific American Article, published 4 years before the hurricane hit, explaining what the likely scenario was.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/ar...ng-new-orleans
I got the same reaction from every single person: That's not gonna happen.
Even though not a single one of them had even read the article.
If the levees had held (and they did for an entire day), this might have been labeled a hoax and hysteria.

Because we are able to foresee potential problems, and because most of the problems do not come to pass, does not mean that the potential problems that were foreseen were hoaxes. It just means that we can foresee many possibilities, and we do want to be able to dodge the ones that could cause a lot of damage.

[raja]

Re: Just in time shipping and your family’s survival

I'm having a lot of trouble using the iTulip search engine.

For a recent example, in the Advanced Search I typed in "Y2K" and "EJ" as User Name, and it came up with nothing.

Are others have trouble with the search engine . . . or am I just doing something wrong?

I ended up using Google to search for EJ's thoughts on Y2K, and found many references. Here -- http://www.itulip.com/y2k.htm -- EJ suggests buying extra toilet paper

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Just in time shipping and your family’s survival

I'm having a lot of trouble using the iTulip search engine.

For a recent example, in the Advanced Search I typed in "Y2K" and "EJ" as User Name, and it came up with nothing.

Perhaps Y2K is not one of the words that the iTulip search engine indexes. "Y2K" might be too short.

I tried a search for "NPR" and author "BDAdmin" and found nothing as well, even though I see the word "NPR" right in the title of BDAdmin's post Janszen Interview on NPR on 05/01/2009 - Power Hungry...Energy Green Bubble?. Not even a "Search Titles Only" search could find this "NPR".

So I'll wager three letter words (Y2K or NPR included) are ignored by the search engine.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Just in time shipping and your family’s survival

Further thoughts: search engines all have their own foibles. Just as when talking with humans, sometimes you have to look for various ways to get your meaning across. Only my dog seems to understand me consistently ;).

[GRG55]

Re: Just in time shipping and your family’s survival

I'm having a lot of trouble using the iTulip search engine.

For a recent example, in the Advanced Search I typed in "Y2K" and "EJ" as User Name, and it came up with nothing.

Are others have trouble with the search engine . . . or am I just doing something wrong?

I ended up using Google to search for EJ's thoughts on Y2K, and found many references. Here -- http://www.itulip.com/y2k.htm -- EJ suggests buying extra toilet paper

The iTulip search engine seems to have trouble with acronyms...