Safety stock when the Black Sea ferry is late
Safety quantity is extra days of cover against a lead time you have actually lived, not against a brochure. In Georgia that often means the ferry, the road, and a Tuesday dock that was already full.
Safety stock is a dull phrase for a simple extra: enough units on the bay that a late truck does not empty the staple lines. The extra is measured in days of cover, then turned into pieces using the rate you actually sell.
Use the lead time you have lived
If a vendor prints fourteen days and your last six arrivals from Poti were nineteen, twenty-two, sixteen, twenty-one, twenty, and eighteen, the picture uses something near twenty, not fourteen. We write both numbers in the margin so the sitting can argue. Hoping the next ferry is punctual is not a method.
Dock congestion is part of lead time
A truck that arrives on time but cannot unload because festive pallets blocked the turning bay is a late truck. In Gldani I have seen a “punctual” delivery sit until Thursday. Safety quantity that ignores the dock is a paper comfort.
Do not spread the extra over novelty lines
The extra days belong on the SKUs that hurt when they vanish: tea, sugar, rice, water, the fitting everyone asks for on a Saturday. Putting safety stock on a novelty sauce that already sits pale on the days-of-cover sheet only buys more rent.
What a Visual Stock Review does with this
We set a recommended extra on a short list, not on the whole catalogue. The buyer still signs the purchase order. If the ferry improves for a year, the extra can be cut. We will not pretend a good summer of arrivals erases the winter you already had.