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

Originally posted by unicorn01: ↑

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

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They have already increased production to 24/7.
But as you mentioned: toilet paper is quite bulky, nobody has extra supplies nor logistics capabilities to respond efficiently to spike in demand quickly. It takes time to ramp up production and logistics and in the meantime you see empty shelves that increase normal demand by multiples of what it would be if little extra demand didn't break the supply chain.
That's what happens with fine tuned supply chain when something goes wrong.
There is nothing wrong with supply chain per say and extra demand won't last forever.
I'm more concerned with supply chains dependant on China and other markets that might get affected.
Toilet paper is highly automated and low skilled. You can pretty much pick people off the street and put them to work with little training (as far as I know).
My point was about how supply chain breaks down more then concern for toilet paper running out. That shouldn't happen with toilet paper for extended period
period of time