[ankeshk]

I've not played Factorio but love your argument. Very thought provoking.

What happens if something in the middle breaks and you don't have a buffer? What happens if there is no iron shortage but the steel furnace blows up? Aren't buffers important in such situations?

[dragontamer]

> What happens if something in the middle breaks and you don't have a buffer? What happens if there is no iron shortage but the steel furnace blows up? Aren't buffers important in such situations?

Okay, lets have two factories that convert 5-iron into 1-steel (Factorio ratio):

* "Buffer Factory": requiring 7000 steel to buffer up / 35000 iron before working at full capacity.

* "JIT Factory" : requires 200 steel to buffer / 1000 iron before working at full capacity.

The JIT-factory can sustain for 5-seconds without any inputs. (Belts in the game pull 40-items per second). The Buffer-factory can sustain for 175 seconds. You're seeing this as a good thing. It is not.

When you hook up a new source of iron to the JIT-factory, it only needs 5-seconds (assuming 5-belts of iron: 200 iron/second) before it starts up to full capacity.

When you hook up a new source of iron to the Buffer-factory, it needs 175 seconds before it goes back into full capacity. (The 175 seconds of buffering "need to be paid" at some point. In the case of Buffer-factories, that payment is done _before_ your end product is even finished).

JIT-factory is more useful. You shutdown when you run out of material (aka: using less electricity. Using fewer resources. Using fewer items).

The Buffer-factory needs 175-seconds to shutdown after running out of material. It also needs 175-seconds of "booting up" once you hook up new sources of material to it. That's electricity you're spending, resources you're using on BUFFERING that's completely a waste.

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Yeah, it sucks to be a worker in the JIT-factory, because your managers want to fire you during these low periods. But you can't deny the underlying efficiency of the strategy. Of course workers want the 175-seconds of buffering periods (aka: to be paid even when the factory is unproductive). But that's short-sighted.

I'm not saying that workers "Deserve" to get screwed here. But fundamentally speaking, the JIT-factory is clearly more efficient. What we need to discuss politically is how to protect the livelihoods of the workers during these periods when supplies run out.

But building systems where you have long periods of "boot up" and "shut down" just so that workers have something to do? That's not useful at all. And anyone who has played Factorio will see this instantly when thinking about buffers.

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Now I don't know the "ratios" of chips to cars. But lets say 100 chips create 1 car for simplicity.

Lets say Ford gets a shipment of 100,000 chips next month. Should Ford build 1000 vehicles? Or should Ford build 500 vehicles (and buffer up 50,000 chips) ??

Think about what the buffer actually means. Obviously, building 1000 vehicles is the answer. The sooner the vehicles are done, the better. The buffer only wastes time and energy.

[ravel-bar-foo]

Your initial example is not making an argument against buffers in the supply chain, but against large production runs requiring large inputs. In the context of logistics, I think of a buffer as a system that slowly fills up due to excess capacity greater than demand, which can be drawn down in times when demand exceeds production. You seem to be referring to a buffer as a process which requires large inputs to get start producing. Ironically, a buffer as I use the term would decrease the 175s startup time for your "buffered" factory.

In real life, factories/farms/hospitals are not designed to agilely shut down and start up again while awaiting inputs, or when there is no demand for the output. Upon a drop in inputs the company goes bankrupt, the crop doesn't get planted, or the patient dies. Upon a drop in demand the company goes bankrupt, the crop gets thrown out, or the travel nurses go elsewhere. Where flexibility in supplies is not an option, the solution is to have a buffer of money (or credit), seed, or medical supplies to smooth out anticipated supply shocks, and we buffer against demand shocks with money/credit, features markets, storage facilities, and some hospital inefficiency.