First off, let me thank you for taking the time out of your day to click on the post here to view. You may be checking to see why your much needed part is not in stock or why I would make a post/rant about out of stock items…or you could just be curious what the title of the post is about. Well, let me say a few things about supply chain. You would think its pretty simple right? Pick up a phone make a call and wait for the order, fill the shelves…simple. It should be and thats the frustration and reason for the post.
I get it- trust me. “there’s wait times, you weren’t the first guy to walk in the door today.” Not something I`d ever say to one of my customers…
How about this one… “Hi I`m calling about that order I placed 6 weeks ago?” Not something I`ve ever had to respond too or read in any email of mine…
Here`s a normal I hear…”I`ll have it by Friday” On Friday when I call or stop in “Oh..he left early I don`t have any idea where your order is”
Sometimes I take the vendors word for delivery time and pass it to my customers..thats not turned out too well for me most times I`ve practiced that.
So the chain part- Yes one of my vendors has a middle man, a “rep” so to speak. That`s good insulation R value 100. Nothing gets to him.. I`m sure of it. I`m mean- what a stress free environment right? …. and when something is produced finally I`m (we) are all supposed to be so happy that the eagle has landed. I`m fed up with it, the deals are good, the parts are good the wait is un-fn` believable.
Another one- I understand, it`s not his primary gig, he offers though- and his parts are perfect and hard for me to source from anyone else…so far. He tries to keep up with my orders (demands) but motivation… not there. If not for money what other motivator can I use, volume? thats a joke..not possible, dancing girls? what? I just don`t get the guys today. I come from a time when you got up at 4:30am and got onto your schwin to head down to the paper house to get your papers to deliver, had your route done by 6 am. collected for the week on Monday, rewarded your self with a slurpee and your favorite comic. Gone are those days man, you can`t light a fire under these half opened eyelid zombies of today. If at one point someone said to me way back when, hey man my pocket is yours for the taking go ahead and make all you want…wow! okay…look out! I`d been all over that. There are exceptions I see in some guys who do hustle and I think the world is not lost yet.
Don`t get me wrong not all of my vendors are like that…once an old southern raised Italian mechanic told me “shoot, don`t you know? any old rabbit needs more than one hole to run too boy!” So I set myself up with 3 laser cutters for my steel and I have..
One guy who is fast but not cheap, wait is not too bad at all.
One guy who is cheap but not fast, wait is like…”wait! when did I order those?” by the time they are done.
One other guy is kind of middle of the road, not fast not dead crawl slow not cheap but not crazy with prices either.
None of them are perfect but Normally I can pull what I need… but the perfect storm has come and for what seems like two months now nobody can produce anything on time or at all. I`m taking a few days this coming week to go shopping, maybe the grass is greener.
So bare with me during these lean times of non stocked items, better times are ahead…end rant/info session
Just a follow up for anyone reading…We have developed new relationships with a few new vendors who have responsible morals ! (even for little guys like me) It is nice when you run across people who run business in a manner like yourself. Although some of our previous relationships are not run aground yet its easy to see that in time they will move on into has been`s. I`m happy to say we have a new water jet service who works with us and also a laser house who is actually going above and beyond and it is very much appreciated.