Ready steady Queue

[190]

What is the point of forecourts only using 40% of their available storage? I understand the "just in time" concept and cost of holding extra stock, but only using 40% seems low for such an essential product!

One possible explanation is the tanks were sized and installed in the days before ethanol. Petrol containing ethanol does not keep fresh in storage as long as fuel without ethanol. It's no accident that at the fuel storage depots, ethanol is only added at the very last minute just before the petrol is pumped into the road tankers for delivery.

 

[Ted]

Filled up earlier at Dunchurch near Rugby.
No queues, all pumps free, all grades available.
£1.38.9 / litre though.

 

[AntMB]

I still can't get 4 star.

 

[Bellow]

JIT can only work when the demand is absolutely predictable. It is not beyond prediction that on little more than whim the public will panic buy. There was ample evidence of this last year. And it wasn't beyond prediction that in the week before furlough ended the public might want fuel in their cars to return to work.
A mere three product lines and they screwed up.

 

[alzieboy]

No Diesel in Tesco on the A140 , plenty of petrol and no queues , Managed to get some Diesel at the Shell Garage also on the A140 , no queues, but 1.51 per litre, needs must sometimes

 

[Trickythemerc]

£90.00 diesel at Toddington yesterday

 

[Fastcar155]

I've also seen a report that forecourts were reducing their normal +/-40% stock level of "old" E5 petrol ahead of the change to E10 so many were down to +/-30% or a little less when the news started the panic buying. What is the point of forecourts only using 40% of their available storage? I understand the "just in time" concept and cost of holding extra stock, but only using 40% seems low for such an essential product!

Hi , cost to fill up at major fuel companies generally don't offer credit to fuel stations

 

[Deleted member 150136]

Well I got home yesterday, and if I hadn't read about this fuel thing I would have not known anything.
All normal up here.

 

[MikeInWimbledon]

I understand the "just in time" concept and cost of holding extra stock, but only using 40% seems low for such an essential product!

It costs too much to hold thousands of gallons in forecourt tanks, so they just hold “enough” for normal demand.

Forecourt tanks are “that big” because some times of year are busier than others, particularly around the start and return from holidays. They have to cope with millions moving around in July, September and December.

 

[markjay]

This ’just in time’ model has been with us for decades now, but a huge acceleration in demand on a fragile system was bound to cause havoc.
I was at a new Toyota plant near Tokyo in the early 90’s and asked just how much stock was in hand for production. “About 10 mins” was the answer!
Toyota had Dunlop build a plant next door to supply tyres, and my colleague was delighted to get me to check the temperature of the tyres going on the cars in build. Still very warm from the production process next door
It seems we are not actually that far off that model in fuel deliveries now!

Well, you can't argue with success... for most of the past two decades, Toyota were the largest car manufacturer in the world, selling around 9m cars annually. I would look and listen very carefully to what they have to say, rather than dismiss it out of hand.

 

[Deleted member 159894]

Well, you can't argue with success... for most of the past two decades, Toyota were the largest car manufacturer in the world, selling around 9m cars annually. I would look and listen very carefully to what they have to say, rather than dismiss it out of hand.

To be fair, we have all been listening to such firms for decades, who hasn’t had some exposure to Six Sigma or Lean methodologies these days?

 

[markjay]

To be fair, we have all been listening to such firms for decades, who hasn’t had some exposure to Six Sigma or Lean methodologies these days?

And have we failed? I would argue not.

The recent fuel shortage was the result of a very simple principle, on which the banking system was founded. Banking isn't new business, and yet no bank can survive a run on the bank.

 

[Deleted member 159894]

And have we failed? I would argue not.

The recent fuel shortage was the result of a very simple principle, on which the banking system was founded. Banking isn't new business, and yet no bank can survive a run on the bank.

Even since the FSCS was created?

 

[markjay]

Even since the FSCS was created?

FSCS doesn't save banks... it helps savers after the bank has collapsed. The last run on a bank ended with nationalisation (Northern Rock), the bank couldn't and didn't survive it.

 

[Deleted member 159894]

FSCS doesn't save banks... it helps savers after the bank has collapsed. The last run on a bank ended with nationalisation (Northern Rock), the bank couldn't and didn't survive it.

FSCS prevents bank runs, up to a limit.

 

[markjay]

FSCS prevents bank runs, up to a limit.

We're splitting hairs here... PSCS helps prevent bank runs... but that doesn't change the fact that no bank could survive one. And, ultimately, PSCS won't help if the public loses trust in the currency due to rampant inflation. The latter is again the result of the same principle, that central banks do not hold securities in sufficient quantities to pay everyone (in theory) in sterling silver etc etc. Most of our economy is based on trust and confidence, and when either is lost, there's no way to stop the snowball other than to reinstate trust and confidence.

Those who started the recent fuel crisis by rushing to fill up, had no confidence in the government's announcements that there's not going to be a fuel supply shortage, and then other motorists joined-in because they didn't trust their fellow drivers to listen to the government's advice.

No economic system can survive loss of trust and confidence.

 

[zipdip]

Well just back from Mactech's area of Norfolk,a few fuel stations closed but many open and only a small queue on some,I was over on the coast but went into Norwich, traffic well down,except when I did the run home on Friday morning,I even saw a Co-Op fuel station selling at 134.9,bit I had plenty of fuel to get home with a good reserve,so will use my trusty Morrisons on Monday as I have another Cockfosters/Watford and home again next Saturday,the car will stay on the driveway until then.

 

[zipdip]

With regard JIT and Toyota,I worked for a long time in a company that swallowed that Toyota JIT nonsense,we even went there to see it in action,but a few lone voices saying don't do it,was not enough when major companies wear the T shirt and sing the company song,JIT was the biggest con worked on the western world,Toyota made it work by having small one band companies set up within the gigantic acreage they had,to which they supplied power to these shanty buildings,which had say a plastic extrusion machine that would be supplied a Toyota mould for say a rear light cluster with a order for say 2000 pieces, once that was done another would be given for something else to be made,these finished parts were then delivered by hand to the Toyota main plant,as a concept it could not fail to work at Toyota but put 2000 miles between maker and user led to most of the problems for the rest of us.

 

[Deleted member 159894]

We're splitting hairs here... PSCS helps prevent bank runs... but that doesn't change the fact that no bank could survive one. And, ultimately, PSCS won't help if the public loses trust in the currency due to rampant inflation. The latter is again the result of the same principle, that central banks do not hold securities in sufficient quantities to pay everyone (in theory) in sterling silver etc etc. Most of our economy is based on trust and confidence, and when either is lost, there's no way to stop the snowball other than to reinstate trust and confidence.

Those who started the recent fuel crisis by rushing to fill up, had no confidence in the government's announcements that there's not going to be a fuel supply shortage, and then other motorists joined-in because they didn't trust their fellow drivers to listen to the government's advice.

No economic system can survive loss of trust and confidence.

And that, ladies and gents, is how you get to be the forum’s most prolific poster

 

[st13phil]

Well, you can't argue with success... for most of the past two decades, Toyota were the largest car manufacturer in the world, selling around 9m cars annually. I would look and listen very carefully to what they have to say, rather than dismiss it out of hand.

Only a fool would deny the success (for Toyota) of the production and supply-chain techniques that they developed and deployed, but many in the West have profited handsomely from encouraging businesses that they should embrace Lean, JIT, Kaizen, etc. while giving insufficient consideration to the importance of cultural factors and - especially for JIT - predictability of demand, reliability of transport, and so forth.

As W. Edwards Deming (arguably, the father of Japanese industrial success after WW II) observed, to make some of these techniques work and deliver the desired results, you have to follow all the methodology elements from end-to-end, not make the mistake that many Western managers do and think they're looking at a Chinese Restaurant menu and can just pick the bits they like.

JIT can and does deliver real benefits if it's used well in a suitable business, but it also brings risks. For example, it's no surprise that (as @zipdip notes), companies like Toyota go to huge lengths to co-locate suppliers upon whom their JIT final assembly process depends either on or adjacent to the assembly facility so as to eliminate transport risk.

My view is that in their desire to burnish their Lean credentials many businesses have paid insufficient attention to risks and vulnerabilities in their often deep and distant supply chains. The last couple of years has demonstrated beyond all doubt that the "unthinkable" could, and in fact did, happen. Globally, we are now suffering from a systemic lack of resilience in many of the industries we rely upon for our comfortable lives.