It's all Just in Time, with a residual amount above the main shelves. If you can't find what you want, they don't have it 'out back', because apart from an unloading area, there's no 'out back'.
Why does society need to learn the same lessons over and over?
What was actually unavailable with dire consequences, like masks/etc... was not unavailable due to lean manufacturing, but simply because it was a new demand that did not exist at this scale before.
> What was actually unavailable with dire consequences, like masks/etc... was not unavailable due to lean manufacturing, but simply because it was a new demand that did not exist at this scale before.
Well yeah that's what stocks are for. France had hundred millions of masks in stock in the early 2009 because they were expecting H1N1, we scraped the project because the pandemic didn't hit as bad as we thought, fast forward 10 years later and we spent twice as much to get half as many masks
Wait until ww3, Europe will discover that having one week of ammunition stock is not enough... all of that is expensive so let's not plan anything and pray for the best case scenario