>> What a remarkably inefficient way to do business...
> 
> You have a more profitable idea?  Specifying exact delivery times, to 
> within +/- 15 minutes is quite common for large factories.  Do you have 
> any idea how much raw material a large manufacturing site can get 
> through?  Where I worked there were *always* about 3 or 4 trucks 
> delivering material, and 10-20 being filled simulatenously with finished 
> goods.  It is simply too expensive to store enough material and arrange 
> the logistics if you allow deliveries to turn up at any time during the 
> day.
> 
> Even at my small local supermarket they seem to know exactly when the 
> deliveries will be made (they put out cones around the area the truck 
> has to reverse).

This doesn't seem to tally with my experience at all. Most shops will 
tell you an item is out of stock and they typically have *no idea* when 
it will be back in stock. Or they promise it will be back in on date X, 
and it isn't, and then they promise date Y, and it doesn't, and then 
they say a delivery is coming in on date Z, but then they say it hasn't 
come in... You start to wonder how they manage to do business at all!

But anyway, while I can imagine a factory being able to predict how much 
raw materials they need on a given day, predicting exactly how many tins 
of baked beans you're going to sell today is obviously impossible. You 
can estimate it of course, but you cannot possibly predict it exactly. 
And if your prediction is too low, you have an empty shelf. This, 
presumably, is commercial suicide.

Similarly, according to your scheme, if one delivery truck gets a flat 
tire, or makes a wrong turn, or drives to the wrong store, or makes any 
one of a million other simple mistakes, empty shelves result. Surely 
this is no way to do business.

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