4 ms·

What are some of the misconceptions that make it so different? "I need iron plates but there aren't any available" just feels so intuitively like a supply chain

What are some of the misconceptions that make it so different? "I need iron plates but there aren't any available" just feels so intuitively like a supply chain problem, I'd love to learn how the real world is so much more complicated.

chii 5y ago
i suppose supply chain management involves negotiation and business acumen, rather than manufacturing process efficiency.
- quartesixte 5y ago
  Yes. If supply chain management was just efficiency and forecasting, it wouldn’t be it’s own giant department in many manufacturing organizations. There is an entire contracts negotiation side to it. Which is really fuzzy and filled with all sorts of intentional inefficiencies (price-wise) brought about by competing interests and incentives.
wffurr 5y ago
You don't place orders with your suppliers, forecast demand from your buyers, account for lead time, etc.
- hirundo 5y ago
  Forecasting demand and scheduling production are very much part of Factorio.
  - ironSkillet 5y ago
    Yes, but these forecasts can be deterministically computed, whereas in the real world, there are so many unknowns that have to be factored in somehow.
    - ShamelessC 5y ago
      They can be - but in the context of the game; they only ever are at the advanced level of gameplay. In general people aren't all running excel analysis on their factorio playthroughs (although I guarantee someone does).
kortilla 5y ago
There is no market in factorio and supplies are produced at nice constant rates. It’s pretty much the exact opposite of supply chain management because the supply chain behaves perfectly. There is no uncertainty.
- ShamelessC 5y ago
  I think the analogy for the entropy introduced by a "market" is just the player's attention span and long-term planning skills. In a beginner-intermediate session, the player can and will have highly variable production rates due to an inability to grok the complexity of what they have built. It's of course very similar to programming in that way. I agree that the game is not trying to be a market simulator however.
Closi 5y ago
> What are some of the misconceptions that make it so different? "I need iron plates but there aren't any available" just feels so intuitively like a supply chain problem, I'd love to learn how the real world is so much more complicated. It's definitely a supply chain problem, but the way it is solved in Factorio (i.e. build a mine and a conveyor belt) is different to the way it is solved in reality (create a spec for the iron plate, a procurement process, contract negotiations, raising purchase orders, organising freight, managing compliance, all of which may be split across different teams). Then the iron plate company probably has the same thing to do for the iron - they probably don't own the mines where the iron ore comes from, so they also have to procure, contract, raise PO's, organise freight e.t.c. So in reality, SCM is usually more about managing all those relationships and contracts rather than getting involved in end-to-end optimisation (which is sometimes done, but the details are the responsibility of another company - i.e. if a car company needs more bolts, they don't get involved in considering where a mine needs to be opened).

chii 5y ago

i suppose supply chain management involves negotiation and business acumen, rather than manufacturing process efficiency.

quartesixte 5y ago
Yes. If supply chain management was just efficiency and forecasting, it wouldn’t be it’s own giant department in many manufacturing organizations. There is an entire contracts negotiation side to it. Which is really fuzzy and filled with all sorts of intentional inefficiencies (price-wise) brought about by competing interests and incentives.

wffurr 5y ago

You don't place orders with your suppliers, forecast demand from your buyers, account for lead time, etc.

hirundo 5y ago
Forecasting demand and scheduling production are very much part of Factorio.
- ironSkillet 5y ago
  Yes, but these forecasts can be deterministically computed, whereas in the real world, there are so many unknowns that have to be factored in somehow.
  - ShamelessC 5y ago
    They can be - but in the context of the game; they only ever are at the advanced level of gameplay. In general people aren't all running excel analysis on their factorio playthroughs (although I guarantee someone does).

kortilla 5y ago

There is no market in factorio and supplies are produced at nice constant rates. It’s pretty much the exact opposite of supply chain management because the supply chain behaves perfectly. There is no uncertainty.

ShamelessC 5y ago
I think the analogy for the entropy introduced by a "market" is just the player's attention span and long-term planning skills. In a beginner-intermediate session, the player can and will have highly variable production rates due to an inability to grok the complexity of what they have built. It's of course very similar to programming in that way. I agree that the game is not trying to be a market simulator however.

Closi 5y ago

> What are some of the misconceptions that make it so different? "I need iron plates but there aren't any available" just feels so intuitively like a supply chain problem, I'd love to learn how the real world is so much more complicated. It's definitely a supply chain problem, but the way it is solved in Factorio (i.e. build a mine and a conveyor belt) is different to the way it is solved in reality (create a spec for the iron plate, a procurement process, contract negotiations, raising purchase orders, organising freight, managing compliance, all of which may be split across different teams). Then the iron plate company probably has the same thing to do for the iron - they probably don't own the mines where the iron ore comes from, so they also have to procure, contract, raise PO's, organise freight e.t.c. So in reality, SCM is usually more about managing all those relationships and contracts rather than getting involved in end-to-end optimisation (which is sometimes done, but the details are the responsibility of another company - i.e. if a car company needs more bolts, they don't get involved in considering where a mine needs to be opened).