Supply Chains
Lean or Buffered: How Firms Decide How Much Stock to Hold
Inventory is money sitting still, and stockouts are sales that never happen. The balance between them rests on assumptions that…
Abhijit Kar
Contributing writer, Trade War China
Abhijit covers manufacturing and what makes a factory relocate.
Contact Abhijit through our contact page — mark your message for their attention and it will be passed on.
10 articles
Supply Chains
Three Kinds of Chokepoint, and Why Only One Is Geographic
The word suggests a strait or a canal. In practice most supply bottlenecks are technical or corporate, and they are far less…
Manufacturing
Why Moving a Factory Takes Years Rather Than Months
The building goes up quickly. Everything that makes the building produce sellable output takes far longer, and most of it cannot be…
Manufacturing
The Learning Curve: Why the Thousandth Unit Costs Less Than the Tenth
Unit cost falls with cumulative production rather than with calendar time. That single fact explains a great deal about industrial…
Manufacturing
Labour Cost Is a Smaller Share of the Bill Than the Argument Assumes
Wage comparisons dominate discussion of where things are made. For many products, direct labour is a modest fraction of what the…
Manufacturing
What Automation Changes About Where Things Get Made
Replacing labour with machinery does not simply move production to wherever machines are cheapest. It changes which factors matter.
Manufacturing
Knowing How to Make Something Is a Separate Kind of Knowledge
A design can be transmitted as a file. The ability to manufacture it reliably is held in people, routines and equipment settings…
Manufacturing
Capacity Utilisation: Why Factories Run Flat Out or Sit Idle
Manufacturing plants rarely operate at a comfortable middle setting. The cost structure pushes them towards extremes.
Manufacturing
Assembly Looks Like Where the Value Is, and Usually Is Not
The country where a product is put together gets the label and often a modest share of what the product is worth.
Manufacturing
What a Special Economic Zone Actually Provides
Zones are usually described as tax breaks. The more important thing they often supply is a working administrative environment…