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Does Nature keep inventory buffers?
I have often been asked this question, whether inventory buffers would be redundant when we achieve full agility. People also ask me if we can draw learnings from buffers found in nature.
If we look around at the various lakes in our surroundings, these are nothing but natural buffers for drinking water. Since many areas get rainfall only during the monsoon season, whereas consumption is round the year, the mismatch between raw supply and demand can be managed only through such inventory buffers.
These buffers have been placed at various strategic locations. Certain geographies get rainfall throughout the year, such as Malaysia and Indonesia. You won’t find lakes in such areas. Cherrapunji doesn’t need a lake. Gangetic plain with perennial Himalayan rivers doesn’t need lakes either.
Lakes are just one example. You will find hundreds of similar examples in nature. The more we meditate on these examples and their strategic positioning, the better we would understand the underlying supply chain principles.