Actually, the toaster company only engages in central planning of toaster assembly. They plan almost nothing else.
Where do they get their iron from? Commodities markets. If I'm not mistaken, even the name of the seller is abstracted away from them (by the financial services industry, which is also not planned by the toaster company).
The manufactured parts (e.g. the plug and switched) may actually require them to care who they purchase from, but all the planning is done by someone else.
And the distribution channels are also, for the most part, handled by someone else. The company sends toasters to Walmart by the truckload, distribution is up to walmart from there on. Maybe the company sends some advertising materials, but that's about it.
The toaster company does engage in planning, but only a little bit. The rest is left up to the markets.
More precisely, everyone at every stage of the thing engages in planning. And those plans are coordinated almost entirely by the market. That's the point of the original article.
Where do they get their iron from? Commodities markets. If I'm not mistaken, even the name of the seller is abstracted away from them (by the financial services industry, which is also not planned by the toaster company).
The manufactured parts (e.g. the plug and switched) may actually require them to care who they purchase from, but all the planning is done by someone else.
And the distribution channels are also, for the most part, handled by someone else. The company sends toasters to Walmart by the truckload, distribution is up to walmart from there on. Maybe the company sends some advertising materials, but that's about it.
The toaster company does engage in planning, but only a little bit. The rest is left up to the markets.