9 ms·

In Factorio design this is simply increasing the buffer size. If the truck-loadings-per-hour don't increase then it's not going to matter how large you make the

In Factorio design this is simply increasing the buffer size. If the truck-loadings-per-hour don't increase then it's not going to matter how large you make the buffer. Adding a secondary site for putting containers also seems like it's going to be a new challenge for the logistics company scheduling the rides (I have a friend who deals with train cargo scheduling). Truckers who are used to showing up at the port are now going to have to go to a completely different site altogether, and who knows how many IO issues the new site will also bring in. Now's the chance for logistics companies to start hiring OpenTTD players.

notwedtm 5y ago
You have idle trucks unable to increase the truck-loadings-per-hour because they can't complete a single job due to the lack of storage space for their empty containers. Providing that storage space will allow the trucks to complete their circuit.
- tuatoru 5y ago
  The increased wait time also degrades capacity permanently. There was an essay by a truck driver posted here yesterday[1]. MMy understanding: many truck drivers are owner-operators, operating on extremely slim margins at the best of times (say 5 pickups per day). With long waits and maybe one or two pickups per day, they go out of business. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29022124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29022124
parsimo2010 5y ago
There were supposedly trucks that couldn’t be loaded because they had no place to get rid of the empty container they currently had. So truck loading rate was low, not because of the speed of the workers and cranes, but because of the availability of the trucks. So this is supposed to allow the truck loading rate to go up by making it easier for trucks to become available. I don’t know if that will happen, but this is an increased buffer size that is directly addressing a limiting factor. It might help.
- aeternum 5y ago
  Increasing a buffer size can also make it look like the problem is solved temporarily when you really have a rate issue. It seems that filled containers are coming in at a faster rate than empty containers are going out. We've increased the buffer for empty containers at the dock but did we address the outgoing rate problem? Why wouldn't the buffer just fill again? I wonder if we've reached a point where manufacturing a new container is more economical than hauling an empty back across the ocean especially if you include opportunity cost to ship actual goods.
  - jkelleyrtp 5y ago
    The increased buffer size gives more time to solve the rate issue before a catastrophic meltdown with inflationary pricing, civil unrest, etc.
  - groby_b 5y ago
    The buffer would (maybe) not fill again, because the overflow containers were stored on chassis. The problem was that we needed buffer space and converted transport to buffer space - and then we didn't have enough transport, so we needed more buffer space. Cue ominous feedback loop music. This should free up transportation space, so we can unload more ships, so we can load containers on them and ship them back. Is it the only problem in the supply chain? Probably not. Will it make things better? Definitely in the short term, and probably in the long term. At the very least it buys a respite to think about further fixes.
  - joshgachnang 5y ago
    On a long enough timeframe and nothing else changing, yes it would just fill up. Realistically, it gives them breathing room to get the rest of the rate up. I am curious what the costs of making a new container and recycling the old instead of shipping them back is. Trade isn't symmetrical. I assume shipping them back is cheap because otherwise the ships are going back nearly empty, so it's almost free to ship them back.
    - smileysteve 5y ago
darkerside 5y ago
Buffer size is critical in the case of things like the credit crunch that seized up the global economy back in 2008. Having room to maneuver makes it possible to address long term problems. Although it can also be thoughtlessly filled in service of short term needs with moves that don't actually provide a long term benefit.
nostrademons 5y ago
You could also look at it as putting down a storage chest so that you can run down a belt and pick up all the items that shouldn't be there, or sticking a chest next to your un-barreling factory while you work out how to get a return train back to the barreling factory, or putting down some fuel tanks to hold light/heavy oil while you research advanced oil processing (before the basic oil change). I'm skeptical that this will fix the problem by itself, but it buys time to observe the system in action and adjust capacity on other bottlenecks to bring it back into balance.
- kqr 5y ago
  I'm skeptical that it will increase observability. Buffering tends to hide problems, not reveal them. We know what the bottleneck is (getting empty containers off a critical location, as far as I understand.) Adding more empty containers to this critical location will not increase our ability to solve the problem, it will put off the problem into the future while simultaneously making it worse.
- drexlspivey 5y ago
  Just run over all empty containers holding F
unreal37 5y ago
The trucks were acting as a buffer, if you believe the CEO of Flexport. So if you increase the buffer size, then the trucks can be trucks again and it's guaranteed to increase truck loadings per hour.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
politician 5y ago
I mean, I also play Factorio and came away from reading the article thinking that yeah, increasing the headroom in the chests (aka container stacks) from 2 slots to 6 slots would definitely introduce slack into the system. The short haul loop to a staging and integration area would also help because it allows you to re-sort the inputs to maximize pickup efficiency and is also something I've done in Factorio games. It might be fun to release a Port of Los Angeles savegame that challenges folks to unhork the port.
- chadwittman 5y ago
  Love that game idea
- cure 5y ago
  > It might be fun to release a Port of Los Angeles savegame that challenges folks to unhork the port. That would be awesome!
  - no-s 5y ago
    what’s really awesome is how Google refuses to believe “unhork” could be a real word or even slang. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. This truly is representative of the emergent horkage of bureaucratic oligarchy founded on algorithms. The supply chain crisis is merely representative of the same noumenon. HHOS. On the flip side, hackspek is becoming obscure again. Which may be desirable to those who would be secret masters of hackerdom.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
MauranKilom 5y ago
Truck-loadings-per-hour will increase, but that does not help shrink the buffer if every truck picking up a container also brings back an empty one. Increasing the buffer size is a temporary relief, but clearly the underlying problem is an ever-increasing number of containers (empty or full), or we wouldn't have gotten into this situation. If we could dispose of the empty containers somewhere then this bottleneck would cease to exist - trucks could just haul away containers at max throughput. I gather that it's become harder to ship back empty containers though, and presumably just scrapping them is not a sound solution in the long run either.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  > I gather that it's become harder to ship back empty containers though, and presumably just scrapping them is not a sound solution in the long run either. This is not obvious to me. The same ships are going back to fetch more goods, so why would they want to go empty? Surely the cost of manufacturing a new container is (or should be) less than the cost of putting it on an empty boat.
  - daveevad 5y ago
    > the cost of manufacturing a new container is (or should be) less than the cost of putting it on an empty boat. If you can prove that considering all externalities you would win a Nobel prize in Economic Sciences.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - bombcar 5y ago
    It’s time to load. An empty ship may be halfway back to China to get a new (overpriced) load before a similar ship is loaded with empties.
    - jaycroft 5y ago
      Does the port charge container owners for storing empties? Ramp up the storage fee, and voila... empty containers go back on empty boats that would otherwise make the return trip with no load. Container owners will find that shipping them back with a reasonable premium to keep ships around long enough to pick up the empties eventually costs less than storing them at the port. Aside, I'd love to have an empty container on my parcel out in the desert, if there's such a huge glut of empties, why does one in any condition cost $10k, without delivery? If anyone has a source for empty containers for sale at reasonable prices, I'd love to have their contact info.

notwedtm 5y ago

You have idle trucks unable to increase the truck-loadings-per-hour because they can't complete a single job due to the lack of storage space for their empty containers. Providing that storage space will allow the trucks to complete their circuit.

tuatoru 5y ago
The increased wait time also degrades capacity permanently. There was an essay by a truck driver posted here yesterday[1]. MMy understanding: many truck drivers are owner-operators, operating on extremely slim margins at the best of times (say 5 pickups per day). With long waits and maybe one or two pickups per day, they go out of business. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29022124 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29022124

parsimo2010 5y ago

There were supposedly trucks that couldn’t be loaded because they had no place to get rid of the empty container they currently had. So truck loading rate was low, not because of the speed of the workers and cranes, but because of the availability of the trucks. So this is supposed to allow the truck loading rate to go up by making it easier for trucks to become available. I don’t know if that will happen, but this is an increased buffer size that is directly addressing a limiting factor. It might help.

aeternum 5y ago
Increasing a buffer size can also make it look like the problem is solved temporarily when you really have a rate issue. It seems that filled containers are coming in at a faster rate than empty containers are going out. We've increased the buffer for empty containers at the dock but did we address the outgoing rate problem? Why wouldn't the buffer just fill again? I wonder if we've reached a point where manufacturing a new container is more economical than hauling an empty back across the ocean especially if you include opportunity cost to ship actual goods.
- jkelleyrtp 5y ago
  The increased buffer size gives more time to solve the rate issue before a catastrophic meltdown with inflationary pricing, civil unrest, etc.
- groby_b 5y ago
  The buffer would (maybe) not fill again, because the overflow containers were stored on chassis. The problem was that we needed buffer space and converted transport to buffer space - and then we didn't have enough transport, so we needed more buffer space. Cue ominous feedback loop music. This should free up transportation space, so we can unload more ships, so we can load containers on them and ship them back. Is it the only problem in the supply chain? Probably not. Will it make things better? Definitely in the short term, and probably in the long term. At the very least it buys a respite to think about further fixes.
- joshgachnang 5y ago
  On a long enough timeframe and nothing else changing, yes it would just fill up. Realistically, it gives them breathing room to get the rest of the rate up. I am curious what the costs of making a new container and recycling the old instead of shipping them back is. Trade isn't symmetrical. I assume shipping them back is cheap because otherwise the ships are going back nearly empty, so it's almost free to ship them back.
  - smileysteve 5y ago

darkerside 5y ago

Buffer size is critical in the case of things like the credit crunch that seized up the global economy back in 2008. Having room to maneuver makes it possible to address long term problems. Although it can also be thoughtlessly filled in service of short term needs with moves that don't actually provide a long term benefit.

nostrademons 5y ago

You could also look at it as putting down a storage chest so that you can run down a belt and pick up all the items that shouldn't be there, or sticking a chest next to your un-barreling factory while you work out how to get a return train back to the barreling factory, or putting down some fuel tanks to hold light/heavy oil while you research advanced oil processing (before the basic oil change). I'm skeptical that this will fix the problem by itself, but it buys time to observe the system in action and adjust capacity on other bottlenecks to bring it back into balance.

kqr 5y ago
I'm skeptical that it will increase observability. Buffering tends to hide problems, not reveal them. We know what the bottleneck is (getting empty containers off a critical location, as far as I understand.) Adding more empty containers to this critical location will not increase our ability to solve the problem, it will put off the problem into the future while simultaneously making it worse.
drexlspivey 5y ago
Just run over all empty containers holding F

unreal37 5y ago

The trucks were acting as a buffer, if you believe the CEO of Flexport. So if you increase the buffer size, then the trucks can be trucks again and it's guaranteed to increase truck loadings per hour.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

politician 5y ago

I mean, I also play Factorio and came away from reading the article thinking that yeah, increasing the headroom in the chests (aka container stacks) from 2 slots to 6 slots would definitely introduce slack into the system. The short haul loop to a staging and integration area would also help because it allows you to re-sort the inputs to maximize pickup efficiency and is also something I've done in Factorio games. It might be fun to release a Port of Los Angeles savegame that challenges folks to unhork the port.

chadwittman 5y ago
Love that game idea
cure 5y ago
> It might be fun to release a Port of Los Angeles savegame that challenges folks to unhork the port. That would be awesome!
- no-s 5y ago
  what’s really awesome is how Google refuses to believe “unhork” could be a real word or even slang. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. This truly is representative of the emergent horkage of bureaucratic oligarchy founded on algorithms. The supply chain crisis is merely representative of the same noumenon. HHOS. On the flip side, hackspek is becoming obscure again. Which may be desirable to those who would be secret masters of hackerdom.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

MauranKilom 5y ago

Truck-loadings-per-hour will increase, but that does not help shrink the buffer if every truck picking up a container also brings back an empty one. Increasing the buffer size is a temporary relief, but clearly the underlying problem is an ever-increasing number of containers (empty or full), or we wouldn't have gotten into this situation. If we could dispose of the empty containers somewhere then this bottleneck would cease to exist - trucks could just haul away containers at max throughput. I gather that it's become harder to ship back empty containers though, and presumably just scrapping them is not a sound solution in the long run either.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
> I gather that it's become harder to ship back empty containers though, and presumably just scrapping them is not a sound solution in the long run either. This is not obvious to me. The same ships are going back to fetch more goods, so why would they want to go empty? Surely the cost of manufacturing a new container is (or should be) less than the cost of putting it on an empty boat.
- daveevad 5y ago
  > the cost of manufacturing a new container is (or should be) less than the cost of putting it on an empty boat. If you can prove that considering all externalities you would win a Nobel prize in Economic Sciences.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bombcar 5y ago
  It’s time to load. An empty ship may be halfway back to China to get a new (overpriced) load before a similar ship is loaded with empties.
  - jaycroft 5y ago
    Does the port charge container owners for storing empties? Ramp up the storage fee, and voila... empty containers go back on empty boats that would otherwise make the return trip with no load. Container owners will find that shipping them back with a reasonable premium to keep ships around long enough to pick up the empties eventually costs less than storing them at the port. Aside, I'd love to have an empty container on my parcel out in the desert, if there's such a huge glut of empties, why does one in any condition cost $10k, without delivery? If anyone has a source for empty containers for sale at reasonable prices, I'd love to have their contact info.