Running Near Empty in a Business

Have you noticed that the most every business is now cutting inventory down
to meet the bare minimum weekly (or even daily) demand that historical data
suggests they need to have on hand?
Going to Rite-AidR, Albertsons, or my recent ongoing experience Rick's
Fencing, you walk into a store and want 3 or 4 of item x and they do not
have it on the shelf. They stock 1 or 2 items and if two people come in and
get them before you that day, there is nothing. In my yard fencing case I
wanted just 16 feet of fencing - and after a week and two days (after I had
already paid for it) I still do not have the fencing. Out of their 4 stores
and their warehouse, it has not been located and delivered to my local store
- but they were more than willing to sell it to me and promise that it will
be delivered two days latter to the store.
Whose fault is this? Government - they tax inventory of businesses and thus
having stuff "lying around" costs them money (REALLY STUPID POLICTY
implemented without the consent of the governed and no way to rescind it at
all that I have ever seen), the idea of purchasing and having items around
COSTS a company money both now and if it is never sold. But now, I will
never purchase anything unless all items are there on hand now. Why should I
be penalized and forced to wait weeks - sometimes months - to get something?
If they are not willing to have it on hand, then I am not willing to pay up
front for commodity goods, and from a business side I see why, from a
consumer side it is not good - we are NOT in the 19th century, but
Government - all sizes - is to blame for this new way of running a business.

Running Near Empty in a Business

Have you noticed that the most every business is now cutting inventory down to meet the bare minimum weekly (or even daily) demand that historical data suggests they need to have on hand?

Going to Rite-Aid®, Albertson, or my recent ongoing experience Rick's Fencing, you walk into a store and want 3 or 4 of item x and they do not have it on the shelf. They stock 3 or 4 items and if two people come in and get them before you that day, there is nothing. In my fencing case I wanted just 16 feet of fencing - and after a week and two days (after I had already paid for it) I still do not have the fencing. Out of their 4 stores and their warehouse, it has not been located and delivered to my local store - but they were more than willing to sell it to me and promise that it will be delivered two days latter to the store.

Whose fault is this? Government - they tax inventory of businesses and thus having stuff "lying around" costs them money (REALLY STUPID POLICTY implemented without the consent of the governed and no way to rescind it at all that I have ever seen), the idea of purchasing and having items around COSTS  a company money both now and if it is never sold. But now, I will never purchase anything unless all items are there on hand now. Why should I be penalized and forced to wait weeks - sometimes months - to get something? If they are not willing to have it on hand, then I am not willing to pay up front for commodity goods.

 

What if Environmentalist get what they wish for

In the Pacific Northwest - Idaho, Montana, Washington and in my state of Oregon, there has been a long movement to get rid of dams to "free the salmon" to run wild back in their rivers. And this really is ALL the dams on all the rivers. Around 37 major ones.

 

What the electric industry really should do to show the people who wish to free the rivers from dams from their misguided fantasy that it would stop all pollution and make things better, every electric utility that has a dam, or the single coal fired plant in Boardman, plus the nuclear one, should not produce ANY electricity during the week of November 4 and let the people in Oregon feel the effects of what would occur by getting rid of all them. It would really show them what happens if we take them all down. 1 week without power may change people's minds a bit - especially during election week. It would take them all week to count the ballots by candlelight - oh wait - that puts smoke into the air also - just could count ballots during the 6 hours of daylight.

The newlywed wife cook story -- and change

This parable is a good example of why the reason how a solution is created to fit a specific problem is NOT passed along to others - but taken as gospel and must be adhered to. Government, any many private organizations, also follow this rational. Not good, but that's the way things are.

 

The newlywed bought a roast home and when preparing it cut off 1/4 of an inch on both sides of the roast before putting it into the pan. When asked by her husband she did it that did it that way she had no ready answer and stated that her mother did it that way.
Curious as to her mother’s rationale, the wife calls her mother and asks why she taught her to cut the ends of the roast. Her mother says she only does it that way because her own mother taught her to do so. The young wife next calls her grandmother and asks why she cut a quarter inch off the end of every roast. Her grandmother tells her, "Because my roasting pan was too small. The roast wouldn't fit any other way."

 

Just because things are now done in a certain way does not mean those circumstances which created the process has not changed and thus a new PROCESS should be done. The problem with most any organization is that the process as written down is taken as law and must be followed - even to those who are doing it can show it no longer makes sense. The people who make the policies that created the process are not willing to acknowledge that the policy needs to be changed and thus all the written processes need to be changed too. Changing the policy to them is like admitting a mistake - since they did not initiate the change thus they resist and tell all that the existing policy must be followed until a formal review takes place - even though this will cost money.

 

The real goal is to teach people to adjust quickly to the new reality by training those in charge to adapt to reality without a formal bureaucracy of change which itself will stop change from occurring.

 

Wasting Time in Lines

I spent a few weeks down in Orlando at Disneyland and Universal Studios - and about 20% of my time in the parks I must have I stood in lines. In our society you always stand in lines: food, movie, toll booth, on the road going to work (in Portland Oregon a person driving on a road spends around 45 minutes no matter from what direction to drive the 12 miles to get into town - and that is BY DESIGN of METRO (the useless regional government), City of Portland, and the county - they want you to feel pain and waste your time, & gas to get you motivated to waste even MORE time on public transit to get to work - another blog topic) but in the destination entertainment Mecca of Orlando - standing in lines is a waste of time and is a good sign of overselling - with a profit motive.

If you go to any of the parks they have the wait times posted that it will take to get on a ride - some as short as 5 minutes and some I saw running 70 minutes. Now if you REALLY want to get on that ride you spend the time in line. On a busy day that means in a 10 hour day you could spend 6 hours in a line - and with 15 to 20 attractions per park it forces you to go back another 2 days in order to see them all. Thus they make more money by purposely having long wait times and forcing you to purchase more days in order to see everything in a park. 

It does not help that some of the rides only last 5 minutes for that 70 minute wait.

Each park has a different method to help you 'manage' you wasted time. Disney has what they call 'Fast Pass' where you can get a ticket that prints out a time you can go back to the ride and bypass the 'standby' line (there still is a line, but it is much shorter so you may only spend 0 to 20 minutes in it). Problem is you can only 'own' one pass at a time. If the ride you want has a time of 3:30 PM and it is 10 AM now, then you cannot get another pass till after 3:30. Thus you will stand in all the standby lines for other rides till your Fast Pass time comes along. They limit the number of Fast Pass per ride per hour to keep the time short. So you save some time but it restricts you in other ride times.

Universal has a simpler method: you pay extra to get into the short line side. They use money to limit their 'fast' line. Using price to weed out people has always worked since there will always be only a small portion of the people going there who are willing to pay an extra $25 a person a day to get the higher level ticket. If too many people pay for the ticket and those lines get too long they can raise the price to eliminate some more people and still make money.

So before you go to the Sunshine State® and visit Disneyland®, Universal® or the many  other parks around there know in advance that on average you will waste no less than 20% of you day in lines talking with your family - and if you don't want to talk then pay for the fast line or plan the Fast Pass strategy to get those tickets as soon as you get in and walk around to find lines that are 15 minutes or less to make the most of you time relaxing.