Economics
Steady nappy sales at the till turned into wild swings in factory orders upstream
Procter & Gamble noticed that retail sales of Pampers diapers barely fluctuated week to week, yet distributor orders swung wildly, and P&G's own orders to raw-material suppliers swung even more. Each link in the chain over-reacts slightly to demand changes to guard against shortages, and those small over-reactions compound moving upstream, like a flick of the wrist becoming a crack at the end of a whip. The pattern, now called the bullwhip effect, shows up across almost every long supply chain.