Future of Supply Chain Disruption

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or can I get toilet paper in the future.

Toiley paper under lock and key.
I’m going to need a key for the bathroom.

It appears we are moving out of the great toilet paper apocolypse. The question is how did we get here. Interestingly it is not about hoarding it is more about supply chain disruption. Last weeks On The Media had a good take on it. You can listen here.

So the bottom line is we live in a world with complicated supply chains. Who knew that toilet paper is one of them. Its very nature shows why it is a prime candidate for disruption. The prime issue is it takes up a lot of space for not a lot of value. So it is interest of the stores and manufacturers to use a just in time method of logistics. Fortunately we know roughly how full of crap the average person is. So the shelves stay stocked.

The Tale of Two Supply Chains

Turns out toilet paper actually runs on two different supply chains, one for consumers and one for business. The expectation is we do our business both at home and away. The lockdowns have changed that. The amount we are using hasn’t changed but where we are has. This is the actually problem. The very rational choice of, “Oh, I am going to be at home more I should pick up a little extra,” makes a big deal. It suddenly increased the demand on the consumer side that for the moment can’t keep up. The commercial side probably has plenty, but its supply chain is not geared to getting toilet paper to retailers, and not in a format the average consumer would use. A quick search on commercial toilet paper shows must of the typical rolls out of stock and then plenty of the large commercial formats that most of use don’t use available.

So more would be available but manufacturers would have change processes and logistics and once that happens most likely the crisis is over and a supply chain problem in the other direction starts.

The Supply Chain of the K2 Society

So how will our future society deal with supply chains and disruptions due to a crisis? Future technology changes things. There are four items you have to think about in your supply chain.

  1. Labor – who you need in your factory to make the products
  2. Energy to power everything
  3. Raw materials
  4. Logistics – really the intelligence to mange your supply chain.

So how do these shake out. Energy and materials become the easy parts. We now have either space based solar arrays or fusion so energy stops being as much of a factor. Raw materials become less of an issue. The future society has built orbital industries for asteroid mining and refining massively increasing access to raw materials. The amount of energy available also takes away some of the constraints from recycling as energy ceases to be a major cost.

Labor is more of a factor, but everything that can be automated has been automated. Technology also has enable most remote work. Disruptions for human labor are massively reduced. We are discovering this today. People who can work remote are probably as productive as people who don’t.

The most critical factor is logistics. This is where all the automation and artificial intelligence come together. We can now assume driverless vehicles and networks of expert systems coordinating traffic and shipping between each other. The ability to pivot and change disruptions is now massively reduced.

So does this mean we have toilet paper in future moments of crisis. We would but we are all just using the three seashells.

Remote Work Today: Technology

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Work from home with cat.

With Covid-19 almost everyone who can work from home is working from home. What are some of the technologies people employing to make remote work easier and also socializing with friends easier.

Collaboration Products

These are complete lines of products that allow for chat with individuals and groups, file sharing, audio and video calling, and on screen collaboration. The big players in this space are Slack and Microsoft Teams. Both offer similar types of services Microsoft actually was contemplating buying Slack but instead decide to roll out their own version as Teams. For a comparison of features and the story of why check out this article.

I am most familiar with Microsoft Teams which currently is making their product free to sign-up. Although upon looking at it it is free for schools for distance learning and for just free video calling they are pushing Skype which was the product Microsoft purchased. They rebranded their Lync program as Skype for Business, but that will be discontinued next year as Teams takes over the functionality. Probably both programs will get you similar results. If you heavily are already using Microsoft Office products you will probably want to look at Teams as it has pretty heavy integration with Office 365.

Video Conferencing Tools

Currently most of the tools that are available to you to use are:

Again Teams and Slack are much more the collaboration tools useful for business. WebEx and Zoom also more geared for the business conference space. However we have had social meetups over WebEx for free. My wife is part of a crochet group that has also decide to meet up over Zoom. Many of these products have free or freemium options so they are worth checking out.

The Hardware You Need

WebCam

You may already have one if you are using a laptop so not a big deal there. If you need a webcam you can probably find one between $50-$80 that will give you good quality. The specs for these will be 1080p for video quality and about 30 FPS for streaming some will downgrade to 720p to give you 60 FPS streaming.

The current one I have is the Logitech C920 which gives good quality and has a fairly good stereo microphone. Currently though almost every store I see is sold out. Clearly there is now a lot of demand to be social online. Amazon has some but if you look they are 3rd party sellers who may be selling at about a 50% to 100% premium. A current search brings up these options. Again look for at least 30 FPS and 1080p (full HD 1920 x 1080) video and a good built in microphone. At this point many of the better models may be sold out or selling at a premium so check the reviews.

Microphone

Most webcams will have have built in microphones, so will your laptop. For most of the cameras the microphone is pretty good your laptop probably not so much. You may want to test your quality.

If you already use bluetooth with your phone you may want to pair that to your computer as a good option for for your microphone. One use is the Plantronics VOYAGER-5200-UC. I have been the same one for two years for business Skype and Teams meetings. It also has the advantage of a carrying case that charges. It also has its own dongle so you don’t have to go through bluetooth pairing and it works more reliably.

One More Thing on Bluetooth

I have dealt with a lot of corporate laptops and sometimes the included bluetooth drivers are unreliable if you have an Intel based laptop and Windows 10. I would recommend downloading and installing the latest driver here. You may get better results.

Happy chatting everyone as you social distance.

Disclosure: I will use Amazon Affiliate links in where the content makes it reasonable. I will receive a commision if you click and make a purchase. However I only add links when it makes sense in the content. Content is not added just to add links.

COVID-19 : Utopia Edition

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Covid virus and next exit Utopia road sign.

There Are Bumpy Roads to the Future

So everyone in the State of Ohio is pretty much on lockdown. Only essential business have their employees and everyone who can work remote is. So clearly today we are in dire states, and everyone is making the best of it. However once this crisis is over we could see some positive changes.

Work From Home Can Prove Itself

My entire team from my company has gone to a work from home. We already had much of what is needed to swap over. A good corporate VPN, everybody has laptops, and almost everyone has a corporate cell phone. So when the order came down that everyone needed to work remote the transition wasn’t too difficult.

This should change the way corporate America thinks. In the past the focus was being present versus being productive. It is easy to see you in the office, harder to gauge how productive the average person is. If people are no longer in the office and the same level of productivity is found moving to more flexible work options becomes easier.

Work From Home Benefits Companies and Workers

I just lost a three hour commute. While maybe more extreme than other people I suspect many people will get an hour of their life back daily. Also scheduling flexibility gets easier. So work life balance is better.

Companies suddenly have a talent pool that is no longer limited by geography. Anyone who can get a good internet connection becomes a potential employee. Cost for office space can go down if you no longer need everyone at work. Your office is now more of a nexus to brings teams together in person not just a warehouse of workers.

We Get a Rough Test of Universal Basic Income

While clearly not a true universal basic income the current stimulus is going to be sening $1,200 to the average American. Granted this is a one time thing, but it ends up moving the idea of sending stimulus checks out to Americans. This can start on building on the ideas of a true UBI, that will be in our future as we work toward the issues that will come about due to automation.

We Find Out the Importance of Health Benefits

While the debate about overhauling our healthcare system has a lot of components. The idea of paid sick leave just became more important. It is in all of our best interests, and best practice that sick people stay home regardless of the disease. The current crisis shows why this is a benefit. Expect this to push this change forward.

So bottom line things are hard today, but out of this crisis we can push forward to creating a better society.

Building a Dyson Sphere

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The Most Iconic Feature of a K2 Civilization

Since the defining characteristic of a Kardashev 2 civilization is the fact that it uses all the energy of its parent star. There needs to be a way to collect all that energy. We mentioned in a earlier post about one of the solutions is a Dyson Sphere or a Dyson Swarm.

The YouTube channel Kurzgesagt has many very interesting videos on distant future technology. About a year ago they did a very good video explain the basics. Check out the video below.

How to Build a Dyson Sphere from Kurzgesagt

Future Work: Coronavirus Edition

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So recently posted about the future of work. Which for the most part leads to so much telepresence, virtual reality, and augmented reality that almost all work will look like a bunch of people in cool glasses and headphone waving their arms in the air at their local Starbucks.

Does the Coronavirus Accelerate the Modern World of Work

The coronavirus, COVID-19 is presenting a challenge to business. My company announced no International travel without approval from our C-Level executive and other companies are doing the same JP Morgan Chase announced 10% of its staff to work from home to test their contingency plans for coronavirus.

So already we have the tools to work from everywhere. Clearly this blog could be written anywhere with internet access and a computer. For more collaborative work many companies are rolling out Microsoft Teams and the like. Microsoft also just announced a free Teams subscription for 6 months as part of its answer COVID-19 outbreak. This could replace meetings and the IP Telephony that can be licensed as part of Teams means that your laptop allows you to do everything you have been used to in the office. Note: Not that teams is everything, but it is the tool I am most familiar with.

Remote Face to Face Has Been Happening for Years

I worked for a brief time at Nationwide Insurance several years agoand we would have a morning face to face “standup” meeting over Cisco Jabber. This included people across three time zones. So the technology has already been here.

So is Remote Work Increasing

I think it is hard for now to determine what will happen, but suddenly due to necessity business is going to explore more remote work options. So what starts as an option to help deal with a crisis can only help also move the trend of remote work forward. I believe what we will find is employees liking it, because it helps with work life balance and companies will like it for its higher flexibility and even possible cost savings. I think remote work is here to stay and will only keep growing as the tools get better.