markitect-main/examples/supply-chain-vsm

Supply Chain Management through the Wealth of Nations

A demonstration of infospace composition: the Wealth of Nations infospace (from ../infospace-with-history) is used as a discipline, applying Smith's economic framework as an analytical lens to concepts in modern supply chain management.

This example shows that a completed, viable infospace is not just an end in itself — it becomes reusable knowledge infrastructure for analysing entirely different topics.

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What This Demonstrates

1. Binding a discipline: infospace.yaml declares the WoN infospace as a discipline with a relative path. markitect infospace disciplines shows it is viable (988 entities, all thresholds met).

2. Cross-domain mapping: Each supply chain entity has a ## WoN Concept section mapping it to a specific WoN entity. The output/mappings/ directory contains structured mapping files with rationale and conceptual continuity ratings (Strong / Moderate / Weak).

3. VSM inheritance: Because WoN entities are already mapped to VSM systems (S1–S5), supply chain entities inherit a VSM position by transitivity through their WoN mappings — without the supply chain infospace needing its own VSM reference.

4. Independent viability: The supply chain infospace has its own schema, thresholds, and viability check. It is viable independently of the WoN infospace.

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Key Mappings

Supply Chain Entity	WoN Concept	Strength	VSM
Demand Signal	Effectual Demand	Strong	S2
Vendor-Managed Inventory	Division of Labour	Strong	S1/S2
Just-in-Time Inventory	Circulating Capital	Strong	S1/S3
Bullwhip Effect	Natural Price as Central Price	Moderate	S2
Safety Stock	Accumulation of Stock	Moderate	S3
Platform Intermediary	Merchant Capital	Strong	S2/S4
Monopsony Power	Combination of Masters	Strong	S3*
Single-Source Dependency	Monopoly in Trade	Moderate	S4/S5

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Running the Composition Commands

cd examples/supply-chain-vsm

# Check bound disciplines and their viability:
markitect infospace disciplines

# Show status of this infospace:
markitect infospace status

# Run collection checks:
markitect infospace check

# Review viability:
markitect infospace viability

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Processing New Sources

To process additional source documents through the pipeline:

export OPENROUTER_API_KEY=$(cat ../../apikey-openrouter.txt | tr -d '[:space:]')

markitect infospace process "new-source.md" --provider openrouter

The map-to-won stage will inject artifacts/won-reference/core-entities.md as the discipline context, enabling the LLM to map new entities to WoN concepts during extraction.

To use the full WoN entity set as context (rather than the curated subset), update the map-to-won stage macro to point at the WoN entities directory:

macros:
  won_core_entities: ../infospace-with-history/output/entities/

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Intellectual Payoff

The most striking finding from this mapping exercise is how few of Smith's concepts are genuinely obsolete. The core mechanisms he identified — coordination signals, capital velocity, intermediary leverage, monopoly extraction, and buyer power — all have direct modern counterparts in supply chain management.

What has changed is the technology: price signals are now data feeds; merchant capital now takes the form of platform networks; the division of labour now operates across firms (VMI) rather than within them. The mechanisms are the same; the surface form is different. This is precisely what Strong conceptual continuity ratings capture.

The genuinely novel element is the elimination of inventory risk by platform intermediaries — a structural innovation not available to Smith's merchants, who had to bear physical stock to earn distribution profit. This is the one place where the WoN mapping stretches to Moderate rather than Strong.