LAST week my column, holding forth on the subject of just-in-time manufacturing supply chains, seemed to puzzle some readers. They are in eminent company. If Theresa May got a chance to read it, she would have been flummoxed too.

In reaction, Robert Fraser wrote in to pose a question: “In the supermarket now, food labelled “British” is code for “English”. And everything else is “Made in China”. Is the author suggesting this kind of outsourcing is a good thing? In an automated world, why is it better to ship goods across the world than have them made on the doorstep?”

I’ll confirm in answer that indeed I believe outsourcing to be a good thing. It is, for a start, the opposite of the economics of Donald Trump, as well as of Theresa May.

In more technical terms, it is the most up-to-date form of the division of labour, the blessings of which were first counted for humanity by our own Adam Smith. In The Wealth of Nations he chose the example of a pin factory in his hometown of Kirkcaldy:

“A workman not educated to this business (which the division of labour has rendered a distinct trade), nor acquainted with the use of the machinery employed in it (to the invention of which the same division of labour has probably given occasion), could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But in the way in which this business is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided into a number of branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One man draws out the wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on, is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations.”

So one Jack-of-all-trades can make a single pin in a day, while a team of a dozen specialised workers can make a huge amount more. We would say nowadays that they are raising their productivity, their output per man or woman. And productivity drives living standards. In 2018 the UK has productivity 16% lower than in the US, France and Germany.

It takes six Brits to produce what five Americans, French or Germans produce. We have stagnant living standards. They have rising living standards.

It was news to me before I researched my column a week ago that the Chinese specialise in the manufacture of ballot boxes, for which there can surely be little demand at home. I guess they just have to do something with their stupendous surplus of steel.

Be that as it may, they are not merely manufacturers but also market leaders in ballot boxes. Anybody wanting some for an unauthorised referendum in defiance of an oppressive central government (maybe in Scotland next year?) need only send an email to China and the boxes will arrive, $65 apiece on Amazon, just-in-time for the polls to open. They could come as freight on the new direct flight between Edinburgh and Beijing, never touching hostile territory. Is Theresa May going to send in the army, or at least an English regiment, to occupy Turnhouse Airport? As I explained last week, all this would be the equivalent to what actually happened in Catalonia, with her reacting like the Spanish government to democratic opposition.

I understand just-in-time manufacturing, and I hope that by now a select group of National readers will understand it, but May does not understand it. So much we can conclude from the first batch of her government’s “guidance” documents – 24 of them to start with, with 56 more to follow – telling us what to expect and what to do in the case of no deal at the end of the Brexit talks.

It would be fair to say the basis for the guidance is more detailed in some cases than in others. Most of us will be surprised to learn from one document that half the human sperm imported into the UK comes from those virile Vikings, the menfolk of Denmark. What will we do without them after the Brexit barriers go up? I suppose the answer must lie in our own hands.

But there is a lot more advice applicable to all the thousands of UK enterprises that over the last 55 years have built up trade with Europe. For instance, they should “consider how they will submit customs declarations for EU trade in a no-deal scenario, including whether they should engage the services of a customs broker, freight forwarder or logistics provider to help, or alternatively secure the appropriate software and authorisations”.

They should also “consider how they will submit import declarations, including whether to engage a customs broker, freight forwarder or logistics provider (businesses that want to do this themselves will need to acquire the appropriate software and secure the necessary authorisations from HMRC). Engaging a customs broker or acquiring the appropriate software and authorisations form HMRC will come at a cost”. Things are no better for exporters, because they too will need to “consider how they will submit export declarations, including whether to engage a customs broker, freight forwarder or logistics provider, etc, etc”. Clearly customs broking, freight forwarding and logistics provision are going to be the boom jobs in post-Brexit Britain.

Over the two or three decades since just-in-time manufacturing appeared on the global scene, it has made a big difference in Scotland too – not everywhere, but at least among the most forward-looking sectors. In response to me last week, Roderick MacSween of Stornoway wrote in to describe the supply chain that connects him with Bohai Shipbuilding in China and the National Oil Company of Saudi Arabia.

A salient case is NCR Dundee, which makes automated teller machines to order. When it switched to just-in-time manufacturing in 1998, it eliminated buffer inventories, reduced the time it held stock from 47 days to five days and the flow-time from 15 days to two days. The number of suppliers fell from 480 to 165.

Now 60% of purchased parts arrive just in time, and of those 77% go straight from the loading dock to the production line. A major industry in Dundee is more secure than it has ever been before – an achievement to rank with the V&A in a renascent city.

There are writers for The National and readers of it who regard capitalism as their enemy. Here is an example of how it is our friend. A spontaneous development of the highest importance arose before the great financial crisis of 2008 but has found its most useful role since, in renewing the capitalist system so that prosperity is returning to many parts of the world (and meanwhile what has unrenewable socialism contributed?). Of course, things can still go wrong – they always can. For the UK in particular, just think what would happen to all these smooth and speedy supply chains in the case of a Brexit no-deal, as the barriers rise up between us and Europe and we can never be sure of doing anything just in time.