John Phipps: It’s Not a Chain, It’s a Web
Not long ago the government (politics) was the default focus of blame for disappointing outcomes. While it still pops up in conversation, the “supply chain” has become our go-to explanation for things that are not our fault — and some that are.
Maybe this is due to the power of analogy — a chain is easy to picture. What is interesting is how little we know, or care to know, about the links.
We were stunned to find many of the chains had common links we had never suspected. Or how many links it actually took for even the most mundane objects. Most alarming to us were where these links existed.
Explanations of where stuff really comes from can be mind-boggling. Farmers rail about this endlessly. There must be a better, simpler way, we often think. Studying the process more, however, we discover there are good reasons why things are intricate and dispersed.
ANALOGY FATIGUE
We often suffer from analogy fatigue. Supply systems intertwine with more than multiple connections in many, many directions.
Petroleum, for instance, isn’t just for fuel but refined into feedstock chemicals; a few compounds are also massaged into other molecules to make inputs that go on to other manufacturers. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Each link is therefore connected not in a straight line, but to many other links from which many lines can be traced. Some links are key contributors to thousands of products.
A FABLED CHAIN
The fabled chain is anything but. A more helpful mental picture is a web with nexuses where threads intersect.
There are other similarities. A twitch at one location can ripple across the entire system. Thread failure distorts connections with distant and omni-directional consequences. The truly “worldwide web” provides an archetype of how business works today.
This web did not appear by intentional design, but billions of trial- and-error decisions steadily propelled by expertise and tempered by cost — so too our economic webs. If product cost and speed are paramount, the production web we have is the future.
Our global economy is constantly being upgraded with new threads and nexuses, but not new competing models. Chain thinking will get us nowhere.
Unfortunately, the isolationism gripping cultures today, especially the U.S., is leery of any connections, clinging to naïve goals to solve problems too complex to fully grasp. If we wish to forge new chains to further self-sufficiency, then speed, choice and cost will have to demoted down the priority list.
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John Phipps, a farmer from Chrisman, Ill., is the on-farm “U.S. Farm Report” commentator.
