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By Root 689 0

system was developed in Japan and became popular in America starting in the 1970s. It is now ubiquitous in nearly every industry. The concept is simple: Through close coordination with subcontractors and piece part suppliers, a manufacturer can keep its parts inventory small. Kanban is a key element of lean manufacturing. Manufacturers order batches of parts only as needed, sometimes ordering as frequently as twice a week. Companies now hire Six Sigma consultants and Kaizen gurus, they buy sophisticated data-processing systems, and they hire extra purchasing administrators, and these expenses actually save them money at the bottom line. Just-in-time inventory systems have several advantages: less warehouse space, less capital tied up in parts inventory, and less risk of parts obsolescence.

The downside is that lean inventories leave companies vulnerable to any disruption of supply. If transportation gets snarled, or if communications get disrupted, or a parts vendor has a strike or a production problem, then assembly lines grind to halt. Just one missing part means that no finished products go out the door.

The kanban concept has also been taken up by America’s retailers, most notably its grocery sellers. In the old days—say, twenty years ago—grocery stores had well-stocked back rooms, with many extra cases of dry goods. But now in most stores the back room has been replaced with just a pallet-break-down area. Merchandise comes in from distribution centers and it all goes immediately to the consumer shelves out front. Thus, what you see on the grocery-store shelf is all that the store has on hand. What you see is what you get. The bar-code scanners at the checkout counters feed a complex reordering system. If Mrs. Jones buys three jars of pasta sauce, that could trigger a reorder for three more jars. As long as communications and transportation work smoothly, then the entire system hums along like a Swiss watch. But what happens when the transportation infrastructure gets disrupted?

Panic buying can clean out supermarket shelves in a matter of hours. The important lesson in all this is to get prepared in advance. DO NOT count on being able to buy anything to provide for your family on or after TEOTWAWKI Day. So stock up.

Consider the fact that there are only about fifteen large long-term-storage food packers in the country, and even fewer firms that sell non-hybrid (heirloom) gardening seed. How long do you think their inventories will last once there is news that there is a lethal, easily transmissible, human-to-human strain of flu? Prices are currently low and inventories are plentiful. It is better to be a year too early than a day too late.

This book will help you get started with your preparations for WTSHTF.

Just How Rawlesian Are You?

Before we begin, let me tell you a bit about my background. I grew up in the Bomb Shelter era of the 1960s. I was born in raised in Livermore, California, the home of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Living there, with one of the highest per-capita numbers of home fallout shelters in the nation, gave me an appreciation for global threats that had personal implications. I have a bachelor’s degree in journalism, and minor degrees in history, military science, and military history. I’m also a former U.S. Army Intelligence officer, where I worked at both the tactical and strategic levels. As an intelligence officer, I monitored the global geopolitical situation very closely. This study helped me appreciate just how fragile all societies can be. I observed that economic and sociopolitical tipping points don’t happen often, but when they do come, they are dramatic and often appear to occur overnight. I also observed that it was refugees who became casualties, so I vowed never to be a refugee.

Even as a teenager, I decided that through training and prudent preparation, I could greatly increase my chances for surviving traumatic times. More recently, as a novelist and as a blogger, I’ve been given a bully pulpit, with the opportunity to encourage hundreds of thousands of