. There is after all, no point in claiming that the purpose of a system is to do what it constantly fails to do. - Anthony Stafford Beer

The problem with managing either a business or a prison by periodic rather than continuous inspection is that the "variables" are likely to be seriously out of control before the discrepancy is noted.

If cybernetics is the science of control, management is the profession of control

The whole picture is complicated by the stockists and merchants who will try to exploit any shortages that may appear.
The result is this. The feedback information from the industry's environment consists, first and foremost, of a forward order load. Much of this "demand for steel" will be bogus.