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It shouldn't be Yeah, it definitely shouldn't. But that's me, hacking together whatever I could to see that unsatisfying rocket launch and finally get the game

It shouldn't be Yeah, it definitely shouldn't. But that's me, hacking together whatever I could to see that unsatisfying rocket launch and finally get the game out of my head. So I'd build something new and supply it from a steel conveyor that had a supply buffer, under estimating how much it would actually use. Then it would eat too much and cause a shortage, which meant other components somewhere else overflowed through lack of use, and overall progress would slow down until I ramped up steel production some more. That sort of thing. So, ideally, everything would go smooth. And plenty of the time for me it did! But a tiny flaw could also be magnified through the system and suddenly I can't produce yellow research bulbs because I was two steel furnaces short of actual demand needed to for servo arms, and production would have peaks and valleys until the additional supply smoothed things out.

samhain 5y ago
I had those same problems until I started using the Factorio calculator[1]. It took some time for it to be developed, and I only just found out about it earlier this year. So I understand where you are coming from. [1] https://factoriolab.github.io https://factoriolab.github.io
Dylan16807 5y ago
Just causing a shortage isn't a bullwhip though. Mere bottlenecks are a much smaller problem.
- ineedasername 5y ago
  Just causing a shortage isn't a bullwhip though That depends. Either way, what I'm describing are my own observations in Factorio are those instances where shortages actually do end up causing bullwhips. And shortages are not always easy to correct: A "mere bottleneck" is what we have in the chip shortage. Production capacity is the bottleneck, and correcting it is complicated. That is what I also observed in Factorio: A small increase in demand that exceeds supply creates a bottleneck because production can't keep up. It propagates throughout the system causing other shortages where the components 4 or 5 layers down the chain need the scarce material. And also causes surpluses on multiple levels because components can't be used to make the components that also need the scarce material. Fixing the shortage isn't always easy. If you need a lot of a specific material to build the production capacity to fill the shortage, that may reveal yet another bottleneck in producing another material, and so on. IRL, it's possible something like this could occur with the increased uptick in fab production. ASML might be a bottleneck in providing drastically more equipment for more fabs. Or someone up the supply chain that feeds them resources could be bottlenecked. I guess we'll see how it plays out though.

samhain 5y ago

I had those same problems until I started using the Factorio calculator[1]. It took some time for it to be developed, and I only just found out about it earlier this year. So I understand where you are coming from. [1] https://factoriolab.github.io https://factoriolab.github.io

Dylan16807 5y ago

Just causing a shortage isn't a bullwhip though. Mere bottlenecks are a much smaller problem.

ineedasername 5y ago
Just causing a shortage isn't a bullwhip though That depends. Either way, what I'm describing are my own observations in Factorio are those instances where shortages actually do end up causing bullwhips. And shortages are not always easy to correct: A "mere bottleneck" is what we have in the chip shortage. Production capacity is the bottleneck, and correcting it is complicated. That is what I also observed in Factorio: A small increase in demand that exceeds supply creates a bottleneck because production can't keep up. It propagates throughout the system causing other shortages where the components 4 or 5 layers down the chain need the scarce material. And also causes surpluses on multiple levels because components can't be used to make the components that also need the scarce material. Fixing the shortage isn't always easy. If you need a lot of a specific material to build the production capacity to fill the shortage, that may reveal yet another bottleneck in producing another material, and so on. IRL, it's possible something like this could occur with the increased uptick in fab production. ASML might be a bottleneck in providing drastically more equipment for more fabs. Or someone up the supply chain that feeds them resources could be bottlenecked. I guess we'll see how it plays out though.