Sunday, January 26, 2014

Kling's production paths

AskBlog: In general, it might be better to think of production “paths” rather than production functions. The path enabling the hunter-gatherers to build a Honda would be long and complex. It would include general-purpose technologies, like language, writing, electric motors, the internal combustion engine, computer chips, and radio-frequency communication. It would include the accumulation of human skills, know-how, infrastructure of various kinds, business norms, and regulations.

Great idea, lets expand it.

This is a queuing problem. The business is solving a queuing problem.  It wants to capture a surplus flow from one path, add value and send it out another path. The business needs to alter the current set of paths, just a bit, possibly displacing some inventory in place of its own.

This is the Shannon model, like information flow (which is a big part of it), goods flow with uncertainty, but everyone agrees on the uncertainty level.

You find this world in large cities, streets bustling with workshops and inventory. To a good approximation, they are all stuck with the same means and delay of transport, for inventory, for lunch, for elevators, and for the commute.  They all see the same basic noise level. Every lunch counter has the same number of people in line, day after day.

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