FWD: E- Business Supply Chain at Its Best

[David RR Webber <Gnosis_@compuserve.com>]

With reference the note about single points of failure in the TA doc',
is the following anecdotal story:

DW.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 
                Supply chain

The mainframe at an electronics part distributor's headquarters
goes down - a hardware failure.

Field engineers for the mainframe vendor "get right on the
problem, determine what failed and order the new component," 
says IT pilot fish at electronics distributor.

The new component should have arrived by air within the day,
says fish, but 24 hours pass, and the part is still MIA.

Queries about the part's availability indicate that the
supplier's system is down, and the part can't be ordered.

By the next day, the mainframe vendor engineers are getting
frantic trying to get the needed part-until one engineer does the math and
realizes that the supplier whose ordering system is down is ... the
electronics part distributor with the bum mainframe.

"A quick trip to our warehouse yielded the vital component,"
the fish reports, "and the system was back up within a few hours."