Parts Shortages

Bobalos

Bobalos

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Anyone else dealing with severe part shortages? 

My company manufactures electro-mechanical devices that have electronics, tubing, fittings, pumps, filters, electronic valves, machined parts, sheet metal parts, painted parts, etc. 

we are having a HELL of a time with shortages.  stuff like vibration dampeners for pumps.  our Nylon fitting vendor said that they cant get raw nylon to make the fittings.  Wire companies are saying that they are out of 22 AWG black wire.  WTF...............  they would normally have miles of that stuff in stock... 

And of course the biggest problem is electronic components.  this started about 2 or 2.5 years ago.  companies were reducing the number of runs they would do on components to once/year & and not increasing lot sizes to cover the whole years worth of demand.............  😞  Now.......... its WAY out of control. 

 
I work for a smaller Electrical Contractor, Parts are hit and miss. I have never walked into a supply house and asked for something that was a common item and them to tell me that they have none, zilch zero.  Yet another will have it but will be out of another item.  Our California office was looking for a larger wire order and they couldn't find a  local vendor who could fill the order with in 30 day's. Talking a $250K wire order and nobody could say, we can do it on the date you need it.

In all my years I never had cherry picked an order like a few other contractors will do.  Cherry Pick= send out a 40 line item request for quote to five different vendors then cherry pick the lowest price from each vendor splitting the order up.  Last month I had to do to back orders and shortages. it is crazy and the prices just keep going up and up and labor, forget about it.  Right now I can't find labor and guy's who have been doing this for 3-4 years are demanding top dollar.

Already had one project that they put off until prices went down and I just got word they cancelled the project at least for the next year or so.

 
What normally was a 2-3 weeks MAX time to receive special order products now takes 10-12 weeks. And what used to be STOCK items are No Longer available. That's the Overhead Door and Dock Equipment Industry. Our Parts Order Board is filled with work orders. Waiting on Material. Not to mention the cost of the material. That is skyrocketing out of control. I've already ordered my Garage Doors for the Dream Home Build due to the rising cost of steel and glass! Peace 

 
Yea............ Labor is a WHOLE different thing........ (& out of control).

 
(Bob looking into his crystal ball):

If shortages continue as they are, sales orders will get canceled, and another RIF will be headed our way.

If material costs continue to go up, profits will go down & another RIF will be headed our way.

If the labor force continues to demand higher wages, profits will go down & another RIF will be headed our way.

If costs continue to go up, corporate pressure to reduce "overhead" will get higher & another RIF will be headed our way.

If sales continue to slow down because of "stuff", another RIF will be headed our way.

what I dont think all of the folks that are jumping ship for "another buck" understand is that here they are the "old guys" & have seniority & value, @ the new company that gave them "another buck", they are the new guys.  "last in, first out"......

 
Bobalos said:
Yea............ Labor is a WHOLE different thing........ (& out of control).
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With one vendor I am now on my 3rd project person and 4th inside sales guy.

The project guy is green as hell and I have to explain his job to him at times

The inside sales guy is on my last nerve, doesn't return my or my field guy's calls and when he does get an order he screws it up. Sends will calls to wrong locations, orders wrong items. 

 
It sucks for customers but vendors like me with inventory are killing it. Found out a factory in India burned down (got a tip) and purchased all the stock in the market on a part number cause it’s a 1-2 year lead time. Spent about $3k 2/3 months ago.

Selling them for $35k today. 

The allocation is bananas. My warehouse has 38,000 SKUs of inventory on the shelf.

I’m getting 5-20 times regulator price for components all day.

Saving all the $ I’m making as this too will end one day. Ive been selling electronic components for 25+ years (18 as an owner) and have been through several allocations.

This one is one of the worst I’ve seen. 1+ year lead times. It will likely last for a couple of years.

abc

 
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One of my suppliers manufactures circuit boards for PC's. He offers about 10 different styles of cards all based on the same technology. This is his entire business and many companies like mine use him exclusively (we design software around his cards).  He just informed us that one of the chips he uses are on a 59 week backorder and there is no cross over. He has "maybe" 2 weeks inventory, then he is basically out of business for a year, and we should find a new supplier. Since we use his cards and using a competitors card would require new SW development and no guarantee anyone else can build the boards...

this is gonna be a tougher year than 2020... for a lot of people

 
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some cranks out 4 months, 

fox shocks out a year, King 9 months 

Whipple 3-4 months, 

waited 6 months for some of the race bearings, 

heads 4-5 months, 

 
I'm in the large, commercial marine business. Shortages everywhere. Pumps, valves, electrical, steel, pipe ,aluminum, lumber. Prices going up rapidly. And prices and shortages getting worse every day. 

 
We had a supply call this morning to discuss late shipments for the next 6 months.  Crazy times with no end in sight.

With covid hitting a lot a smaller countries right now, we are seeing more factories shutting down, we are expecting 4-6 weeks longer lead times to get things built, before material shortages.

Ports seem to have gotten better though, just short on truckers and trucks to get things around our country.

 
What is this supply chain shortage you speak of🤕

All I can do is put my boots on ,come to work and grind for parts. Internally we are switched on and cranking. Externally it's a challenge to make the cars leave. 

Thankful we have what we have though. 

 
I ordered a garage door in march, its mid june, still not here. 

I build stainless exhaust for aircraft. 1 3/4 x .049 321 is the great white buffalo right now. It does not exist. We order 10k feet a year. We are down to 6’ right now have been waiting since again march. Was told june 15 which has come and gone. Now they say mid july.

we were also told stainless sheet was unavailable from our regular supplier, we ended up buying the complete stock from a warehouse in los angeles (40 sheets .025,.032,.040) appears we got lucky ordered more .040 and told maybe october

 
THOR industries, the largest RV manufacturer in the world is back ordered a year to the tune of $14 billion. Meaning anything ordered period won't even get looked at for a year. Oh and the $14 billion back log, is about half pre sold meaning dealers still won't have inventory available to show or sell. 

 
We are to the point now on one product line that they have built all of July orders up to the shortages (which might not get in @ all in July) & now we will try to move them to other product lines to keep them busy......  we are one shortage away from shutting the whole damm place down.  what @Grant@Funco said............. come to work & grind for parts!!!! 

 
HEADINJURY said:
THOR industries, the largest RV manufacturer in the world is back ordered a year to the tune of $14 billion. Meaning anything ordered period won't even get looked at for a year. Oh and the $14 billion back log, is about half pre sold meaning dealers still won't have inventory available to show or sell. 
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I wonder what kind of shortages they have...  that makes me think there is the potential to have a LOT of very mad customers (whos money is tied up in promises that will not be delivered until they are well out of business).

 
J Alper said:
some cranks out 4 months, 

fox shocks out a year, King 9 months 

Whipple 3-4 months, 

waited 6 months for some of the race bearings, 

heads 4-5 months, 
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I was over at King a couple weeks ago picking up parts  and they told me they were 9000 Pairs of shocks back ordered 

Everyone with any inventory is jacking prices up or holding 

I went to buy some parts for my trailer, manufacturer said  "sorry we are not selling parts now so we can build new trailers and we have no idea when we will be selling parts again"

 
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