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What's actually "chip shortage"?
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nardev:

--- Quote from: CatalinaWOW on June 10, 2021, 03:53:28 pm --- Nardev, you are saying that some politicians are using the "crisis" for their own political gains.  That is kind of like saying water is wet. 

I personally agree, it is absolutely happening.  But I don't think it is cause or even a very large part of what is going on.

--- End quote ---

Well,  after reading all here i now 100% agree.

The thing is that i'm from Bosnia and not only that we don't have much of an industry any more here, we also lack the supply optimization in other consumer goods, so i can confirm that i was shocked about shortages, back in march-april of toilet paper etc in USA as i didn't notice anything significant here.

Well, flour and paper were in high demand but you could buy as much as you wanted. I don't remember a day that it was not available in all local stores and malls.



nardev:

--- Quote from: SilverSolder on June 10, 2021, 03:01:31 pm ---
--- Quote from: nardev on June 10, 2021, 01:59:47 pm ---So many interesting facts and opinions but it looks like my "theory" confused you. It's more speculation and in the domain of political economy :)

 <So, my theory is that all the information about chip shortage is probably partially true but at the same time protectionism propaganda in order to motivate and shift manufacturing capabilities from China "back to USA/EU"?

Does anyone else see it that way?>

--- End quote ---

I think it was answered above, if you put the jigsaw pieces together.  The fundamental problem is that the industry is geared to run at near 100% capacity even during normal, sunny days - and this means there is no spare capacity to cope with any kind of demand peak.

Your point about protectionism is valid:   the protectionists, in their misguided zeal, have the effect of reducing flexibility and caused unusual orders to be placed (e.g. Huawei et al), making an already bad situation even worse.  But they didn't cause the crisis on their own - they just make it worse, in that people can't as easily just sit down around a conference table and come up with good solutions.

--- End quote ---

Agree, the "Wendover Productions" video explained some things that i didn't understand. I simply don't see companies in my country relaying much on supply optimization. A friend of mine had a phd in math, making models about stock optimization etc but very few companies were interested in that here.
coppice:

--- Quote from: Tomorokoshi on June 10, 2021, 04:56:14 pm ---The MBA's made the same (wrong) decision that engineering managers often fall into: trying to schedule production to 100%. There is no margin or slack; the supply network is too long and too brittle to elegantly balance inductive supply with capacitive demand. Step responses like Covid throw the system into oscillation.

--- End quote ---
No margin for slack is how you maximise return on investment.


--- Quote from: Tomorokoshi on June 10, 2021, 04:56:14 pm ---I advocate (which of course never gets implemented) that engineering resources shouldn't be scheduled to more than 80%, and should really be more like 70% but that tends to get rejected as silly. Without that extra and realistic margin built in, the asynchronous events like redesign for part substitution breaks the schedule all the way out. The extra margin also allows for a more refined design.

--- End quote ---
Who shouldn't be scheduling engineering resources more than 80%? A business should certainly be trying to get close to 100%. If society wants to have extra capacity lying around for a rainy day, and are prepared to fund equipment that will probably never be used, that's another issue. It doesn't serve the interests of a business, though.

The real problem is that when we really should have stuff lying around just in case, like all the medical supplies the world was short of in the spring of 2020, society doesn't care enough to make the commitment it should. They just play a game of pass the blame when bad things happen.
nardev:
@coppice mentality of nations is not the same. Also, strategies that they incline to.

I would just cite one simple example.

VW back in 90's had two times more engineers (i think around 7K) while i think in whole USA (i don't remember if it was one or several main manufacturers) had around 3.5K engineers directly involved in design, planning, construction,manufacturing, testing etc.

Well, VW is well known for quality were USA cars in 90's didn't have such reputation.

So, you can make cars with less engineers but you can't get the quality, reputation and eventually be prosperous as VW.

IMHO
coppice:

--- Quote from: nardev on June 10, 2021, 05:38:04 pm ---@coppice mentality of nations is not the same. Also, strategies that they incline to.

I would just cite one simple example.

VW back in 90's had two times more engineers (i think around 7K) while i think in whole USA (i don't remember if it was one or several main manufacturers) had around 3.5K engineers directly involved in design, planning, construction,manufacturing, testing etc.

Well, VW is well known for quality were USA cars in 90's didn't have such reputation.

So, you can make cars with less engineers but you can't get the quality, reputation and eventually be prosperous as VW.

IMHO

--- End quote ---
Is that supposed to relate to what I said in some way? If so, you'll have to explain.
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