Stock control, software, and Jurassic Park

[Jericho]

This is a convoluted one, so bear with me.

First-World-Problems.

Those of you who have read Jurassic Park might understand where I'm going with this. I love the film, and I love the book. For very different reasons. They are 2 very different things.


So...

In my student days, I used to work in a supermarket so I could afford to eat at university. Safeway!!!!

Safeway sold these fabulous chocolate cookies, with chocolate chips and outs. Really small, less than an inch across. They were the best.

They also sold a non-chocolate version (still had choc chips and oats, but the cookie itself was 'regular'). Actually it had more of a toffee flavor.


Anyway...

The chocolate ones always sold out instantly, leaving a big gap in the shelf, and next to it were the 'regular' kind that were untouched.

Over a week, that pile would also be bought by people saying "Oh well, this will do instead."

So, what does the stock control software show?

"Hey look, these 2 types of cookie are both sold out! Let's buy some more!!!"


No!
No!
No!

The chocolate ones are what everyone loves. They others are just bought because there was no alternative. STOCK MORE CHOCOLATE!!!!!

Alas, those wonderful cookies ended 15-20 years ago. But the problem continues.

The software system in Jurassic Park had similar flaws, discovered by a smug Ian Malcolm. They knew they had (for example) 7 raptors. So they searched for 7 raptors.

Confirmed.
They cameras and image recognition found 7 raptors.

But, of course, that was the problem. The software did exactly what it was told to do. It was told to find 7 raptors, and it found 7 raptors. So when there are more than 7 raptors, the software doesn't care. It found 7 and stopped looking.


I go to buy some cookies to take in for the team at work this morning, expecting to find lots of chocolate chip cookies (the most popular), and what do I see? Chocolate cookies sold out, lots of 'regular' ones left. So I buy that because that is all that is left. The same problems with stock-control software that existed 20 years ago still exists.


Can you tell that I'm annoyed?

[Ezarkal]

Convoluted, but it makes sense.

The best solution for this would be to make your own cookies.

[UniTrader]

well, try to find solutions to this problem. some Suggestions:

=> tell the Market Manager that it would make sense to shift the Stock Levels to store more of the Chocolate Cookies and store less of the non-chocolate ones. it may work.

=> Boycott the non-choc alternative. if it doesnt sell it will be phased out eventually.

=> If there is only non-choc left dont buy it but steal it so it will not be subtracted by the Stock Control when it gets out of the Market and eventually disappear completely (Disclaimer: this is just a Joke )

[pjknibbs]

Why is the stock checking software relying on what's left on the shelves? Surely it should be looking at the rate the things are going through the tills to determine how popular an item is.

[UniTrader]

Why is the stock checking software relying on what's left on the shelves? Surely it should be looking at the rate the things are going through the tills to determine how popular an item is.

in most cases i doubt its the Job of this software to determine the popularity of an item, but its job is to keep the Stock Levels. easiest way to do is not to check the Shelves, but to count what has been sold and to re-order it if needed. i guess on a weekly basis. (and if an item sells out in this order period its popular enough to be kept in stock, doesnt matter if another, similiar item is sold in less time within the same timeframe since both sell out mostly)

[Chips]

i guess on a weekly basis.

Daily... there will be "orders" sent every single day by the supermarket. They do not keep large caches out back, but rely upon a steady supply from the warehouses that get delivered.

Otherwise once a week you'd see a huge line of lorries at a supermarket as all the deliveries arrive.

[Morkonan]

It's all about re-order quantities and stock-levels. The computer doesn't ever "see" the shelf. In most cases, it doesn't even know something was sold, only that a certain quantity was subtracted from the current level.

Reseller shelf-space is an asset that is marketed and sold. Safeway has sold that amount of shelf space to the distributor/manufacture of those products. Working together, usually, they've come up with a plan that gives equal space to these two products.

Safeway only cares about sales and shelf-fees or marketing program fees the distributors pay to them in order to put their product on the shelf. So, in a way, Safeway doesn't care that the chocolate chip versions sell the best, they only care that the manufacturer's products look to be selling fairly well.

The manufacturer/distributor of that product might know very well that the choc. chip version sells the best, but they might be trying to create more of a market for other versions, too. That way, some people might enjoy more than just one version and may buy even more versions of their cookies.

HOWEVER - In the end, someone, somewhere, will run some numbers and will make some adjustments to be sure to have more of those cookies that people really like. But, it's possible, due to other obligations and concerns, that the chocolate version will always be in short-supply, slowly pushing fans towards other products by the same manufacture.