What’s at the root of the supply chain breakdown? That’s a critical question but the answer is almost irrelevant. The supply chain is a complex dynamic system of immense scale. It is of a complexity comparable to the climate as a system.
供应链崩溃的根源是什么？这是一个关键的问题，但答案几乎是无关紧要的。供应链是一个庞大的复杂动态系统。它的复杂性可以与气候系统相媲美。
This means that exact cause and effect cannot be computed because the processing power needed exceeds the combined processing power of every computer in the world.
这意味着，由于所需的处理能力超过了世界上所有计算机的综合处理能力，因此无法计算出确切的因果关系。
Most people have some notion of how supply chains work, but few understand how extensive, complex and vulnerable they are. If you go to the store to buy a loaf of bread, you know that the bread did not mystically appear on the shelf.
大多数人对供应链如何运作有一些概念，但很少有人了解它们是多么的广泛、复杂和脆弱。如果你去商店买一条面包，你知道面包并没有神秘地出现在货架上。
It was delivered by a local bakery, put on the shelf by a clerk, you carried it home and served it with dinner. That’s a succinct description of a supply chain – from baker to store to home.
它是由当地的面包店送来的，由店员放在货架上，你把它带回家，和晚餐一起吃。这是对供应链的简洁描述——从面包店到商店再到家庭。
Yet that description barely scratches the surface. What about the truck driver who delivered the bread from the bakery to the store? Where did the bakery get the flour, yeast and water needed to make the bread? What about the ovens used to bake the bread? When the bread was baked, it was put in clear or paper wrappers of some sort. Where did those come from?
然而，这种描述仅仅触及了皮毛。那个从面包店把面包送到商店的卡车司机呢？面包店从哪里得到制作面包所需的面粉、酵母和水？用来烤面包的烤箱怎么样？当面包烘烤好后，就会被放进某种透明的或纸质的包装纸里。这些是从哪里来的？
Even that expanded description of a supply chain is just getting started in terms of a complete chain. The flour used for baking came from wheat. That wheat was grown on a farm and harvested with heavy equipment. The farmer hires labor, uses water and fertilizer and sends his wheat out for processing and packaging before it gets to the bakery.
即使是这种对供应链的扩展描述，也只是从一个完整的供应链的角度出发。用于烘焙的面粉来自小麦。那些小麦是在农场里种植的，用重型设备收割。农民雇佣劳动力，使用水和肥料，在小麦到达面包房之前，把它们送到加工和包装处。
The manufacturer who built the oven has his own supply chain of steel, tempered glass, semiconductors, electrical circuits and other inputs needed to build the ovens. The ovens are either hand crafted (engineered-to-order) or mass produced (made-to-stock) in a factory that may use either assembly lines or manufacturing cells to get the job done.
建造这个烤箱的制造商有自己的供应链，包括钢铁、钢化玻璃、半导体、电路和其他用于建造烤箱的材料。烤箱要么是手工制作(按订单设计) ，要么是工厂大规模生产(按库存量生产) ，可以使用流水线或制造单元来完成工作。
The factory requires inputs of electricity, natural gas, heating and ventilation systems, and skilled labor to turn out the ovens.
工厂需要输入电力、天然气、供暖和通风系统，以及熟练的工人来生产烤箱。
The store that sells the bread is on the receiving end of numerous supply chains. It also requires electricity, natural gas, heating and ventilation systems and skilled labor to keep the doors open and keep merchandise in stock. The store has loading docks, back rooms for inventory, forklifts and conveyor belts to move its merchandise from truck to shelf.
出售面包的商店是众多供应链的接收端。它还需要电力、天然气、供暖和通风系统以及熟练的劳动力来保持门的开启和商品的库存。这家商店有装货区、存货区、叉车和传送带，用来把货物从卡车运到货架上。
Every link in these supply chains requires transportation. The farmer relies on trucks or rail for deliveries of seeds, fertilizers, equipment and other inputs. The oven manufacturer also relies on trucks or rail for deliveries of its inputs, including oven components. The bakery and the store rely mainly on trucks for deliveries of their inputs and the finished loaves of bread. The consumer relies on her automobile to get to the store and return home.
这些供应链的每一个环节都需要运输。农民依靠卡车或铁路运输种子、肥料、设备和其他投入物。烤箱制造商还依靠卡车或轨道来运送其投入物，包括烤箱部件。面包店和商店主要依靠卡车运送他们的原料和成品面包。消费者依靠她的汽车到达商店然后回家。
These transportation modes have their own supply chains involving truck drivers, train engineers, good roads, good railroads, rail spurs and energy supplies to keep moving and keep deliveries on time.
这些运输模式有自己的供应链，包括卡车司机、火车工程师、良好的公路、良好的铁路、铁路支线和能源供应，以保持运输和按时交货。
This entire network (farms, factories, bakeries, stores, trucks, railroads and consumers) relies on energy supplies to keep working. The energy can come from nuclear reactors, coal-fired or natural gas-fired power plants or renewable sources fed to a grid of high-tension wires, substations, transformers and local connections to reach the individual user.
这整个网络(农场、工厂、面包店、商店、卡车、铁路和消费者)依靠能源供应来维持运转。这些能源可以来自核反应堆、燃煤或天然气发电厂或可再生能源，输送到由高压电线、变电站、变压器和当地连接组成的电网，以供个人使用。
Everything described above sits somewhere in a complex supply chain needed to produce one loaf of bread. Now take everything else in the grocery store (fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry, fish, canned goods, coffee, condiments and so on) and imagine the supply chains needed for each one of those products.
上面描述的一切都处于生产一条面包所需的复杂供应链的某个环节。现在拿杂货店里的其他东西(水果、蔬菜、肉类、家禽、鱼、罐头食品、咖啡、调味品等等)来想象一下这些产品所需的供应链。
Then take all the other stores in the shopping center (home goods, clothing, pharmacy, hardware, restaurants, sporting goods) and imagine all the goods and services available from those vendors and the supply chains behind each and every one of those.
然后再看看购物中心里的所有其他商店(家居用品、服装、药店、五金店、餐馆、体育用品) ，想象一下这些商家提供的所有商品和服务，以及每个商家背后的供应链。
In case you think I have exaggerated the components and steps in making a loaf of bread in the above example, I didn’t. The example above is a grossly simplified description of the actual supply chain.
如果你认为我在上面的例子中夸大了制作面包的成分和步骤，我没有。上面的例子是对实际供应链的粗略描述。
A full description of the needed supply chain would reach back further (where do the seeds for the wheat come from?) and branch off in tangential directions (where do the bread wrappers originate?).
对所需供应链的完整描述可以追溯到更早的时期(小麦的种子来自哪里?)然后沿着相切的方向分叉(面包皮是从哪里来的?).
A full description of the loaf of bread supply chain with choice of vendor analysis, quality-control tests and bulk purchase discounts among other decision tree branches could easily stretch to several hundred pages.
对面包供应链的全面描述，包括供应商分析、质量控制测试和其他决策树分支机构的批量采购折扣，可以很容易地延伸到几百页。
Now consider all of the supply chain links and possible bottlenecks described above are purely domestic. But very few supply chains are actually that local. CEOs, logistics engineers, consultants and politicians have spent the past 30 years making supply chains global.
现在考虑所有的供应链环节和上述可能的瓶颈纯粹是国内的。但是很少有供应链是真正的本地化的。过去30年，首席执行官、物流工程师、咨询师和政治家一直致力于将供应链推向全球。
You’ve heard discussion of globalization since the early 1990s. What one may not have realized is that the process that was being globalized was the supply chain.
你们从20世纪90年代早期就听说过全球化的讨论。人们可能没有意识到的是，正在全球化的进程是供应链。
**By James Rickards
作者: James Rickards
**Source
转自：https://eraoflight.com/2021/12/21/the-great-supply-chain-collapse/
