The end of the road

Citation

Loughlin, C. (2001), "The end of the road", Assembly Automation, Vol. 21 No. 1. https://doi.org/10.1108/aa.2001.03321aaa.001

The end of the road

The end of the road

We have just been through a rather unsettling time here in the UK. Three unconnected events combined to bring the country to a halt, or if not a complete stop, at least slow us down a bit. The country wasn't running, it was more like a crawl.

The first, and the one with probably the greatest (at least short term) impact, was that the majority of the public and all of the transport community, decided that we were paying too much for diesel and petrol. This is largely attributed to the high cost of crude oil at the moment which was further exacerbated by the tax charged by our government, which is based on a percentage of the total cost, not a fixed levy.

Whether the protest was right or wrong doesn't really matter, but the effect caused chaos.

What happened was that lorry drivers picketed the oil refineries and prevented fuel from leaving the depots – all largely with the public assent. This would have been bad enough but the problems went off the scale when people started to "panic buy" petrol. The effect was to empty all the tanks in all the petrol stations in the course of a few days, and of course they were not being refilled. Then people knew that they would not be able to get more petrol so were very cautious about driving at all. Basically no one and nothing went anywhere. In the space of just a few days the country had stopped working.

Public opinion is very fickle and soon tides turned and the pickets were lifted, the fuel started to flow and after a few more days the country was up on its feet again.

Just when we thought it was safe to go travelling we had extensive rainfall and widespread flooding which closed many road and rail routes. And if this was not enough we had a major rail crash (four fatalities) which was caused by a rail cracking. This triggered off a burst of long neglected rail surveying and replacement which is still ongoing as I write, and which has resulted in most train journeys being doubled in duration while the trains go slower.

What has all this to do with automated assembly? Not a lot directly, however it has made a lot of companies look again at their just-in-time operations. The idea of reducing stocks by relying on the timely delivery of new parts makes a lot of sense for a wide variety of reasons. However, it does leave you highly vulnerable to events such as those outlined above, and over which individual companies have little or no control.

We had a few days when all the stocks in the world would not have helped you very much because people were simply unable to travel to work, but there are less severe situations where the want of a few day's supply can cost you dear.

So what is the solution? I cannot see vast warehouses making a comeback. The solution, or at least an improvement on the present situation, lies in significant improvements in the country's infrastructure. Nothing underlines the need for fast and effective road and rail networks as suddenly finding you haven't any at all. Emphasis in recent years has been on improved efficiency, cutting out waste and doing as much as possible with as little as possible. This is a fine approach when everything is running smoothly, but without any built in redundancy, systems soon crack under pressure. These same lessons can be applied within the microcosm of our factories as well as countries in which they operate.

Our recent problems were caused by difficulties in moving people and products. In our next issue we will be looking at recent developments that work to minimise physical movement. Internet-based manufacturing may not be for everyone, but the implications are profound.

Clive Loughlin