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Peter's avatar

S-curve is basically a cumulative curve of the bell curve. So , like in marketing or innovation, first (Bell curve) we have innovators, then early adopters, then early majority - inflection point) , then late majority and laggards. In cumulative terms one gets S-curve. Another interesting story is time of transition from one S-curve to another . Like transition from vacuum lamps to transistors , etc. Or ICE to EV vehicles.

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SJ's avatar

A long time ago - early to mid-50s, I think - Prof. Jay Forrester at MIT came up with the "bullwhip" or "whiplash" effect (later termed as the Forrester effect). This referred to very small perturbations (say, 2%) in customer purchases at checkout of specific products that cycled back through the entire supply chain in ever increasing amounts. What he evidenced was the increasing amplitude of demand-generated effects on supply all the way back through upstream vendors.

He theorized that the initial small dip or increase in sales of a particular item (itself possibly random) was subsequently misinterpreted by people in every preceding stage: first by the shelf replenishing clerk reporting to the store inventory head, who then inflated it some more while placing orders for the store at the local warehouse, that was then again inflated to the regional warehouse... And so on until it reached the manufacturer. The ripple effects took time and when the manufacturer finally increased production or invested in higher capacity, there was over-supply and unsold goods. All because the original blip at the checkout was just that: an inconsequential blip.

Of course, today's supply chain systems are architected for just-in-time using real time data. But the principles of human behaviours remain the same. And, for the purposes of this discussion, if one were to look backwards at the whiplash effect curve and smooth out the waveform, they do resemble the S curve - in reverse, or as mirror image.

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