The Biscuit Barrel - Episode 5 – A transport strike
Andrea: Mr McKenzie?
Malcolm: Hi Andrea. What’s up?
Andrea: Bad news, I’m afraid. James Pilger has rung from Alldays the packaging suppliers. He couldn’t get through ‘cos you were on the line so as it was urgent they put him through to me.
Malcolm: And?
Andrea: He’s very apologetic but he says they can’t get the full order of packing materials through to us.
Malcolm: What?
Andrea: He said there’s a transport strike. Something to do with all those demonstrations about fuel duty. The hauliers are going out in protest for 48 hours, apparently, and that affects our deliveries here.
Malcolm: Yeah, I heard about the fuel protest, but I didn’t think the Biscuit Barrel would be affected though. What did James say exactly?
Andrea: He told me he reckons that they can get 60% of the supplies to us on time. He didn’t know when they would be able to get the rest to us. I told him that you would call him later.
Malcolm: Is Lee Chung in his office?
Andrea: I think so.
Malcolm: Right.
Malcolm: Lee? It’s Malcolm here. Have you heard the news about Alldays ? Seems they can’t get tomorrow’s full packaging order over to us ‘cos of this transport strike. Only about 60% apparently.
Lee: Oh, no – that’s serious. We’re in the middle of a big production run aren’t we?
Malcolm: That’s right
Lee: Look we need to get some more information from Alldays, Malcolm. Percentages aren’t good enough: we need to know exactly what packaging they can deliver and what they can’t.
Malcolm: OK I can ask Andrea to do that right away
Lee: No, I’ll do that. I want to be exactly sure what is coming and what isn’t.
Malcolm OK. What else?
Lee: Well two more things straight away. Once we have established exactly what Alldays can get to us we then need to see who else can supply us with the rest of the order .... maybe Andrea could make a few calls about that?
Malcolm: Sure…And the other thing?
Lee: We need to prioritise our clients. We have to decide whether to send partial orders to everyone or to send full orders to some customers and ask others to wait.
Malcolm: Hmmm… that’s a bit drastic – but crisis management I suppose. Ok, shall I ask Andrea to make a list of suppliers?
Lee: Yes, and I’ll phone James in the meantime.
Malcolm: Ok let’s crack on the sooner we get on the better.
Maria : Hi Malcolm
Malcolm: Hi María.
María: Hello. Andrea’s just told me the news. Do you think we’ll get all the supplies?
Malcolm: Well I hope so – Andrea’s making some calls to find substitute suppliers just now, but we’ll certainly have to pay dearly for them. For once our suppliers have got US over a barrel.
Maria: Well at least we will have enough material to get the orders finished on time.
Andrea: Mr McKenzie. I’m really worried. I’ve made eight calls and they’ve all come up negative; no-one is available to deliver our packing materials. It seems as though everyone’s affected by this strike – and if they are not out on strike themselves they are already booked up. I’m running out of contacts.
