'Just-in-time' business model puts UK at greater risk

[mobbsey]

Stocking-up a surplus is an expensive option -- and if you even think like that you're already changing your mindset toward a more bunker-oriented mentality.

Instead you should run a large stock of food as a routine part of your domestic system. That way it's not "economically" useless or superfluous to your everyday life. It's also a whole lot more nutritious than the freeze-dried cac that passes for survival rations.

We bulk buy -- partly from wholefood coop and partly from 'special offers' in local stores. That stock gets put on one end of the queue on the shelf. As we use it up everything is shifted along to make space for more. We also grow a little in the garden, and I've scouted the area outside the town for the best foraging and water supply points. Even if "the lights went out", we'd definitely be OK for a week or two; or if just after a delivery we might get by for a month. We also have very little in our small freezer -- mostly bread and hummus; in fact we've far more bread sitting outside of the freezer in the form of flour and yeast.

The thing is that running a bulk/collective buying system doesn't just mean you have a stock of food in the house. Instead of paying extra for your specialised food supply, you're saving money on your everyday food needs. That's a far more sound approach to the problems of 'just in time'.

[Tarrel]

Stocking-up a surplus is an expensive option -- and if you even think like that you're already changing your mindset toward a more bunker-oriented mentality.

Instead you should run a large stock of food as a routine part of your domestic system. That way it's not "economically" useless or superfluous to your everyday life. It's also a whole lot more nutritious than the freeze-dried cac that passes for survival rations.

We bulk buy -- partly from wholefood coop and partly from 'special offers' in local stores. That stock gets put on one end of the queue on the shelf. As we use it up everything is shifted along to make space for more. We also grow a little in the garden, and I've scouted the area outside the town for the best foraging and water supply points. Even if "the lights went out", we'd definitely be OK for a week or two; or if just after a delivery we might get by for a month. We also have very little in our small freezer -- mostly bread and hummus; in fact we've far more bread sitting outside of the freezer in the form of flour and yeast.

The thing is that running a bulk/collective buying system doesn't just mean you have a stock of food in the house. Instead of paying extra for your specialised food supply, you're saving money on your everyday food needs. That's a far more sound approach to the problems of 'just in time'.

Agreed. I remember a year or so ago suggesting to my wife that we should maybe think about putting in a reserve stock of food. She gave me a withering look and told me to go and check the cupboards. Sure enough, when I added up what was there, we probably had enough for a month or so, more if we rationed our intake. She has always run a stock surplus, but then she comes from a rural Norfolk family. Old habits die hard I guess.

That hasn't stopped me building up a few more weeks worth in the garage though

[Tarrel]

By the way, has anyone downloaded the Chatham House report linked to in the article? It makes interesting reading.

[energy-village]

Apologies if this has already been posted.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/ja ... aster-risk

The UK could stand "at most a week" of disruption if a natural or man-made disaster struck before severe problems, economic and social, that would bring chaos to the country, according to a new report from the international affairs thinktank Chatham House.

The authors blame a complacent reliance on the globalised economy and the widespread adoption of "just-in-time" business models that stress lean, ultra-efficient operations with little slack built in for any unforeseen circumstances or stock held in reserve.

Article continues...

Talking of 'Just-in-time' I got a tweet from DAVOS (the slightly mysterious 'World Economic Forum'):

Life without trucks. Can you imagine a total shut-down of the road freight system?

By Professor Alan McKinnon

Can you imagine a world without trucks? It’s not a scenario that keeps many people awake at night, but perhaps it should. If, for whatever reason, road haulage operations were suspended, the resulting dislocation of supply chains would result in economic collapse within a few days. This is the conclusion of a study I have carried out of the likely impact on the UK of a total shut-down of its road freight system.

This eventuality is not as far-fetched as it may seem. In September 2000, steep increases in fuel prices provoked some UK hauliers and farmers into blockading oil refineries and blocking roads, causing a national crisis within three or four days. Since then strikes have seriously disrupted trucking operations in France, Spain and Portugal (June 2008), Australia (July 2008), India (January 2009), Greece (September 2010) and Shanghai (April 2011).

The trucking sector is particularly prone to this type of action. In most countries, its profit margins are very tight. This leaves carriers’ finances vulnerable to cost increases, particularly of fuel, whose price is highly susceptible to global events, and which typically accounts for around a third of total haulage costs. Although the trucking industry is highly fragmented, protests over prices, wages, taxes, tolls and regulations can precipitate mass action. Carriers and drivers know that such action can have a swift and debilitating effect on an economy giving them industrial ‘muscle’.

The conclusions of the UK study were far-reaching and profound. After only five days, the country would see retail stocks of most grocery products exhausted, almost all manufacturing closed down, all elective surgery in hospitals suspended, half the national car fleet without fuel, mail and parcel deliveries terminated and retail banking seriously disrupted by the collapse of the ‘cash logistics’ system. As the analysis made no allowance for panic buying, the reality would in all probability be far worse.

Cont.

http://forumblog.org/2011/12/life-without-trucks/

Presumably it is the 'great and good' at DAVOS that are partly responsible for 'Just-in-time' - perhaps now is the time for them to actually do something about it, rather than wait for the crisis.

By the way, has anyone downloaded the Chatham House report linked to in the article? It makes interesting reading.

Not yet. Will do.

[DominicJ]

AlphaRubicon do a lot on food storage.
Most of it is more to survive a tornado than Peak Oil, but rarely do they suggest "survival foods"

[Tarrel]

Re. "Life Without Trucks":

The 2000 fuel protests were the clearest possible wakeup call about the whole just-in-time and oil-dependency issue. I witnessed panic-buying in our leafy corner of the home counties. Just before it all blew over my wife, who was a community nurse with the NHS, started to receive lots of interesting information from work about "next steps", "contingencies", "fuel for essential users", etc. We really were on the brink.

As a country we should thank the protesters for what was effectively a dress-rehearsal of the type of sudden, maybe short-term, events that could become a feature of a jittery post-peak world.

My wife's role is a good case-study in how we have been sleep-walking towards a problem. During the first 10 years or so of her role, during the 80's/90's, community nurses were "GP-attached", meaning they would be based out of a local GP's surgery, and their client list would be similar to the GP's and, predominantly, local. This meant she could do her work mainly on foot or bike, whatever the weather or circumstances. In the last few years there has been a tendency to bring the nurses together into teams, operating from a central location and covering a much larger area (by car of course), in the name of efficiency. The last two winters have been a disaster, with the service virtually grinding to a halt in the snow.

Same area, same staff, same clients - just a different organisation structure, based on an assumed ease of mobility, which ends up being much less resilient.

I think the whole "assumed mobility" issue, which ultimately leads to the just-in-time strategy, is one of our biggest weaknesses. There are so many things that could render mobility difficult or, in the case of rising fuel prices, commercially unviable; temporary fuel supply interruption, flooding, snow, disorder, industrial action to name a few. All these situations have occurred in the last 10 years. A less mobility-dependent socio-economic system wouldn't prevent these situations, but it would avoid them being such a problem.

[woodpecker]

Oh dear. I just forwarded the Chatham House report to a friend who I thought might be interested... And then realised they were one of the contributing authors. Squirm!

[DominicJ]

Thats classic.

[vtsnowedin]

We bulk buy -- partly from wholefood coop and partly from 'special offers' in local stores. That stock gets put on one end of the queue on the shelf. As we use it up everything is shifted along to make space for more. .

Rather then repeatedly moving our stock on the shelves I just tag each section of shelf with a fill date tag and put a large "use this section" tag on the oldest section so it gets consumed then refilled noting what last cans never got used and dropping them from our shopping list. No sense wasting space on things you don't really use. This also saves marking every can with a purchase date which we did at one time but found to be quite tedious. I suppose we could have bought a stamper like the grocery clerks used before bar codes came in.

[DominicJ]

You could make rolling shelves for common use tins and jars.

[woodpecker]

I'm just building some better storage space into the under/next-to/over-stairs cupboards (having just ripped out plenty of dirt and some conduit and loose live(!) cables dating I think from the 1930s, and filled all the spaces more than 0.5mm with plenty of wire wool (mice!). It will be vertical shelving on all walls, I think. Three separate spaces measuring in total about 14 feet by just under 3, right in the centre of the building where the old staircases used to be.

[JohnB]

It will be vertical shelving on all walls, I think.

Horizontal shelves are better, as things won't slide off

[woodpecker]

Vertical storage, horizontal shelving, of course

[Lord Beria3]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... vings.html

Around six million households would be unable to survive for more than five days if they stopped being paid, such are the low levels of savings among Britons, new research shows.

Seems a lot of families couldn't last for more than a week either...

[energy-village]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/pers ... vings.html

Around six million households would be unable to survive for more than five days if they stopped being paid, such are the low levels of savings among Britons, new research shows.

Seems a lot of families couldn't last for more than a week either...

Somehow I doubt many would stay in their homes, starving. I suspect they'd start begging family, friends and neighbours, move on to shop-lifting and looting and then raid promising private homes; aided by various social media networks.