The world has gone a liitle cray cray !!!!!!!!!

Originally posted by BabaRoga_space: ↑

Nobody is buying 2 years worth of toilet paper.
If manufacturer's produce 100,000 per day on regular basis and 50% of the people start buying extra weeks supply = shelves will be emptied.
The toilet paper supply chain is just too fine tunned to handle spike in demand (there is no stockpiles in supply chain)

The same thing is happening with food manufacturing, cans, office supplies, car parts, you name it it's running out.
You just can't see it in an obvious way as toilet paper. As these items have irregular demand or long lead delivery time for ingredients/parts.
Suppliers/manufacturers have reserve for weeks/months in distribution chain stockpiles.
For example: the aluminum foil is made in China and so is plastic. They are turned into potato chip packaging and yoghurt cup and seal. They take 2 months to go from order to manufacture to sea freight delivery to Australia.
So companies will have packaging for a month or 2 to last between delivery plus some extra for unforseen circumstances.
The shipments from China of such products are disrupted as China's capacity to produce is impacted. The supply chain is drawing reserves.
But come April/May various companies will be unable to package and distribute things like yoghurt and potato chips. Or have spare parts for machinery and equipment, tonner for printer.
And then you'll start seeing the same thing as toilet paper. Dwindling stock > self preservation buying.
(If China doesn't regain full manufacturing capacity)

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The toilet paper supply chain is just too fine tunned to handle spike in demand (there is no stockpiles in supply chain)

I can only comment on the paper manufacturer in box hill not the one in south Australia the actual paper mills run 24/7 but the speed of the mills that produce the parent reels could be increased, the converting machines that turn the parent reel into the product that you buy may only be running two shifts 5 days a week so they could increase production quite easily

as far as raw materials are concerned the pulp that the paper mills need there is roughly around 2 months supply, that product comes from either Canada or South America with regular shipments to keep the supply of pulp up , the product that you buy is stored in warehouses and they keep a large amount in storage maybe a month or two of supply

the reason for keeping a supply is simply that if a paper mill has a break down which happens and that mill is out of action for a couple of weeks and they can't supply the product they are in breach of their contract , and also if they loose customers who through past experience once they change brands don't return, sickness in the workforce is a valid point although i don't see that as much of a problem as they also use labour hire companies to fill gaps if needed

The lack of supply at the supermarkets caused by panic buying is beyond me how many jumbo packs do you need i heard that toilet paper was being listed on Ebay so I had a look and found that toilet paper that sells for $10 at the supermarket was being offered for sale for $100 up to $2000
but back to the supply of paper, the manufacturer can ship out as much as they want,the problem I see is that as toilet rolls are bulky and low value to the supermarket they only have one or two pallets in the store which may only be around 150 jumbo rolls,another factor re paper on the shelf is that it costs the company millions of dollars a year for the shelf space for their product they may have reduced shelf space to save on costs

maybe a solution would be to supply the supermarket only with six packs and a limit of two packs per customer