Thursday May 24, 2012

JAPAN NEWS AND DISCUSSION

Japan quake stirs unease about global supply chain

Business Mar. 31, 2011 - 06:02AM JST ( 6 )

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6 Comments

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tokyovistorMar. 31, 2011 - 06:41AM JST

the story has placed suppliers on an edge of maintaining long-term relationships with manufacturers.
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tkoind2Mar. 31, 2011 - 10:02AM JST

2008 showed us that short sighted idiocy in the US housing market could cost people in Asia their jobs and people in Africa their lives. Now Fukushima shows us that globalization will again cost lives as things are made far away and are now hard to get.

We really do need to look at ways to have more localized production. This would bring back jobs, offer stability in other nations when one is disrupted.

But the cost of this is to reverse much of what the corporate world told us was Great for us. Globalization has hurt normal people while making the rich even richer.

Instead of complaining, we need to start demanding that more jobs become more localized to avoid some of these risks.
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noriyosan73Mar. 31, 2011 - 11:36AM JST

Like it or not, it is a global economy. So, if you don't like it, park your car, discard all electrical appliances and camp with the blue tent people on the river. Isolationism caused all the major wars and probably the minor wars. The problems in north Africa are the result of the leadership in those countries being more interested in personal financial gain than the country's gain. Even China recognizes the importance of global economies.
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Bebert61Mar. 31, 2011 - 11:51AM JST

Isolationism caused all the major wars

There is nothing wrong with autarky, which is self-sufficiency and a non-reliance on imports. But few nations can pull it off either because they don't have the natural resources or their people aren't capable of it. If wars can be blamed on anything, it can be on big nations trying to force open new markets (19th Century England vs. China) or not wanting to compete on merit (England vs. Germany).

But this ignores the real problem, which is the "Just in time" delivery system, which doesn't allow for 9.0 earthquakes, wars & blockades, riots, etc.
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TahoochiMar. 31, 2011 - 11:54AM JST

tkoind2: I agree with what you are saying to an extent, but wouldn't you agree that localization and globalization both have pros and cons? For example, globalization consolidates purchasing-related costs, maximizes buying power, and increases efficiency of development and start up, but if one of the links in the global supply chain is incapacitated (as in the case with Miyagi), then the whole system is disrupted. But if you have regional localization you have the ability to stand alone and survive on local supply chains, minimal logistics costs, and you support the local economy, but you are cost-inefficient if you try to expand globally.

One thing that also keeps sticking in my mind though, is that even if a company is completely localized and a disaster like this strikes that area, then the whole ship goes down (no pun intended), not just one portion of it.
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KapunaMar. 31, 2011 - 02:32PM JST

Change the production name from "just in time" to "just in case" and stockpile critical supplies.