Supply Chain

Description

Network Resource Planning

Bob Haugen:

"NRP means Network Resource Planning. Its purpose is to coordinate economic networks.

A Supply Chain is an Economic Network, with a head, which is the agent producing end products for consumers, and a tail, which is a tree of agents that supply them with components. A value system also includes the demand chain, which includes all of the agents who distribute the products from the head of the supply chain to consumers. It's shaped, as you may imagine, like an X.

A Business Ecosystem is more complex, shaped like a directed graph. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_ecosystem

“An economic community supported by a foundation of interacting organizations and individuals—the organisms of the business world. The economic community produces goods and services of value to customers, who are themselves members of the ecosystem. The member organisms also include suppliers, lead producers, competitors, and other stakeholders. Over time, they coevolve their capabilities and roles, and tend to align themselves with the directions set by one or more central companies. Those companies holding leadership roles may change over time, but the function of ecosystem leader is valued by the community because it enables members to move toward shared visions to align their investments, and to find mutually supportive roles.”

Linux, Raspberry PI, and Android are examples of business ecosystems. Enspiral, Sensorica, and Fair Coop are examples of potential or wannabe business-like ecosystems.

If Enspiral, Sensorica, and Fair Coop converged with the Mutual Aid Networks, the P2P Foundation, a permaculture community, and a small-to-medium-sized city or two, they could become an economic network.

Capitalism is an economic network.

NRP in its present state is only able to coordinate small economic networks. If the current convergence and refactoring project succeeds, it will be able to coordinate larger ones. If the Value Flows project succeeds, it will be able to coordinate economic networks of any size.

The next economic system will be an economic network." (email, March 2017)

Statistics

From a conversation between Vinay Gupta and Sweetbridge CEO Scott Nelson:

" It’s $54 trillion of GDP globally, which … it’s two-thirds of the world’s global economy. Employees, the largest portion of people on the planet.

Vinay: So, this won’t be funny, but that would explain why it’s kind of large and complicated! Well, it’s two-thirds of the entire global economy! No wonder it’s complicated to explain!

Scott: Well, it’s just varied, and it’s called a supply chain, because there’s things that move from one party to another party to another party that are adding value, supposedly. Now, there are a lot of intermediaries that a lot of people would suggest don’t add value, but that add value in a chain. In practice, it’s more like a network. In fact, if you looked at the topology of it, it would look very similar to the topology of the internet.

...

Scott: Well, it’s all very woven together, and it’s all interdependent, in many ways, and it’s far more organic than people think it is. The supply chain is like the world’s largest DAO. A supply chain for some companies, economically, is larger than many nations. They’re mid-sized countries.

...

Vinay: Ah, interesting. How many people are involved in supply chain globally? Scott: I don’t know the exact number. I tried to actually find it, but it’s got to be close to at least three billion." (https://blog.sweetbridge.com/scott-vinay-talk-a31e3a052f4e)

More Information

• Bob Haugen