Where Is All the Toilet Paper? Don’t Worry, It Is coming!

Quand c'est une crise sanitaire, il faut écouter les médecins (surtout si on est président). Mais pour parler des produits courants, c'est surtout un logisticien qu'il faut lire (avant de se plaindre du Just-In-Time pour ceux-ci). Dans le lot, Christoph Roser fait un point sur la question épineuse du papier toilette.

Toilet paper is one of the cheapest goods by volume that you can find in a supermarket. Hence it makes little sense to produce it abroad, and most regions have one or more local manufacturer nearby that provide the stuff. These manufacturers operate close to their usual output. A paper machine is a rather expensive product, and manufacturers try to run it around the clock anyway. Hence, there is not much option to increase capacity. There may be an idle plant that goes online, or maintenance can (not necessarily should) be reduced. Overall, production is increased very little. And, as we see later, it should not be. If they put in a lot of effort now to increase capacity, they would have to put in a similar effort later to reduce capacity, since the overall demand does not change!