Supply Chain

When I was growing up, most retail operations would have a warehouse of some kind attached to the back of their store. It was not uncommon for a clerk to say, “We don’t have anymore on the shelf, but let me check in the back.” More times than not the clerk brought out what you needed. The breakdown in that supply chain was the failure of the employees to restock the shelves.

With the invention of computers, and competitions from discount houses, the idea of keeping extra stock anywhere but on the shelves has become foreign. A surprising number of those younger than me have no concept of asking a clerk if they might check the back for an item that appears out of stock. We even have a name for the modern merchandising system. It is called “Just in time ordering.” Computers help us to calculate the demand for our product and project when we need to order a small quantity of our product just in time to restock the shelves as the last of that item is sold.

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