Material Shortages

[BigN8]

Who else here is seeing ridiculous lead times on materials in their industries? I'll start:
Polyisocyanurate insulation - basically rigid polyurethane foam insulation, normal lead time was 4 days. We are now telling customers an order placed today will maybe deliver in April or May next year. The product manager thinks that we will have sold all possible 2022 production capacity by December of 2021.
Low rise foam adhesives - Some are not available at all due to a steel shortage that is hampering the production of the containers to hold this product, Other adhesives have 6 Month lead times and we are on allocation for how much we can buy. Normal lead times were 2-3 days
Steel fasteners and plates for commercial roofing - 6 Month average lead times, used to be a couple days

We are actually starting to see commercial roofing contractors go out of business due to cash flow issues. They can't sustain a work force while waiting on materials to deliver. To make matters worse we always guaranteed the price of the insulation for 30-90 days. Now our quotes expire the same day we make them and we are telling the contractors we won't know the price of the insulation until the day it ships. So these guys are pricing a job in June let's say, and the insulation doesn't ship until December, and by that time it has gone up 30% or more...

 

[meaningreen]

For us it's not just materials lead time, everything we use metals, plastics, even cardboard (64% increase) have seen material costs go through the roof. We've had to have 4 price increases just to keep up with the rising costs of materials. I've never seen anything like this. The cost of shipping has gotten out of hand as well, shipping containers have doubled in price over 9 months.

 

[swatski]

Outboard motors.
Most Yamaha and Mercury models are out >1year at this point, and that is assuming one is buying a whole new boat! It is longer for repower.

Used outboards are fetching insane prices.

--

 

[Cobra Jet Steering LLC]

I have also had some real eye opening cost increases for not only stainless but aluminum as well.
Just had a 25 percent cost increase yesterday when we finally obtained a quote and quotes are only good for 24 hours. I have been hoping this will change directions and for that reason I have absorbed all the price increases for the past year however it may soon be reflected in my buy direct discount prices, even the free domestic priority mail I provide has increased every year. And stainless fasteners are insanely expensive.
So when does this end.

 

[ripler]

I engineer automation control systems and we build them in our panel shop. We are seeing shortages and long lead times on everything. It's taking a lot longer for me to design a system because I have to find out delivery times before I incorporate the product into my design. I'm having vendors flat out lie to me about delivery dates just to get the order and then they blame Covid when they can't deliver. I've quoted things that were in stock to a customer and by the time my customer places the order the product is on backorder. I've had to add a line in my proposals saying we can't guarantee delivery. We are adding more mark up on our proposals because by the time our customer send us an order it's over our vendor's 30 day price.

 

[BigN8]

I had a contractor get awarded the reroof of Terminal A at DFW airport last March. Covid hit and the airport put the contract on hold. We were begging them to release us on the project to take advantage of no people to deal with during construction. Fast forward to today. Now air travel is back to pre-Covid levels and they want to release the project. Contractor updates their price and the change in price is +1.7M dollars. Airport is freakin out and calling me asking how this is possible. I tell them it’s gonna get worse before it gets better. Let’s say you release them tomorrow, they place the material order, but now the lead time is next June. I have no idea what that price will be by then.

 

[Mesa50]

We are seeing the same thing in the window and door manufacturing industry. Vinyl, wood, aluminum, adhesives, composite trim, glass, sealants, etc. All skyrocketing in price. Everyone in the construction industry has a labor shortage, so Installers are demanding more and more money because they can work anywhere now. So the cost of labor is skyrocketing as well. We went from 12 weeks from order to delivery, to 20 weeks, just because of a tremendous amount of orders. We aren’t having production issues because of supply, it’s all just an out of control volume.

 

[Julian]

I assume all of this is caused by the snowball effect of covid personnel outages. The guy at the plant that knows everything about X goes out with covid for 2-6 weeks. He also gave it to A,B and C people at the plant who pass it on etc. Before you know it the plant is barely able to operate. This causes a domino effect down the line with the consumers of that plant's product. Amazing how this has gone on in so many industries (but not surprising I guess).

Look at the chicken business....the price of chicken wings has gone through the roof. At times you couldn't even get them! Some places had to stop selling them (Wing stop did!!!).

 

[meaningreen]

I assume all of this is caused by the snowball effect of covid personnel outages. The guy at the plant that knows everything about X goes out with covid for 2-6 weeks. He also gave it to A,B and C people at the plant who pass it on etc. Before you know it the plant is barely able to operate. This causes a domino effect down the line with the consumers of that plant's product. Amazing how this has gone on in so many industries (but not surprising I guess).

Look at the chicken business....the price of chicken wings has gone through the roof. At times you couldn't even get them! Some places had to stop selling them (Wing stop did!!!).

Some could be that, but there were also a lot of plants that shut down when the US went into lockdown. Our plants shut down for a month and then were allowed to reopen, by then it was to late. Add in China bought up tons of materials while we were in lockdown for their infrastructure improvements. Chip shortages, ship stuck in Suez Canal, Freeze in Texas shutting oil production down. It was just one domino falling after another. Usually we only see one major event every couple years, but there were 3-4 major events in 2020-now.

 

[Scuba_ref]

We can't keep an adequate supply of oxygen in stock at our hospital and being on an island makes the outlook that much more dire. Oh and all that other stuff is an issue as well!

 

[AZMark]

I had a contractor get awarded the reroof of Terminal A at DFW airport last March. Covid hit and the airport put the contract on hold. We were begging them to release us on the project to take advantage of no people to deal with during construction. Fast forward to today. Now air travel is back to pre-Covid levels and they want to release the project. Contractor updates their price and the change in price is +1.7M dollars. Airport is freakin out and calling me asking how this is possible. I tell them it’s gonna get worse before it gets better. Let’s say you release them tomorrow, they place the material order, but now the lead time is next June. I have no idea what that price will be by then.

That is surprising and was extremely short sighted of that airport. I work with customers that have very large facilities that are usually filled with people and almost every one of them took the opportunity to make improvements and repairs while they were closed by the various shutdowns in early-mid 2020.

 

[tabbibus]

Darn, every time I see this thread on the list I read it as Marital shortages and have to do a double take. That is all. Carry on.

 

[BigN8]

Many things are contributing to the supply issues that have resulted in a perfect storm. One of the biggest factors in my opinion is Lean Sigma, aka "just in time" manufacturing. Toyota pioneered this years ago and it caught on with US manufacturers. I have personally been involved with a dozen lean sigma events. The problem with this just in time "perfect engine" manufacturing plan is that one good disruption and you find yourselves in the situation we are in now. That's the case with the computer chips that are holding up the auto manufacturing business. If you limit your supply of raw materials and parts to an order in order out limited inventory process, you have no where to go. Toyota experienced this with the Earthquake that caused the tsunami. They realized just in time works for some raw materials and parts, but may not work with the more delicate hard to source parts, so they scaled up inventory of those items and did not for others.

So if you have all of these different manufacturers in the US running on just in time delivery methods, and then throw in a pandemic which slows down shipping, the whole thing compounds itself to the point that we have these massive lead times.

Covid most certainly is hampering the supply chain due to China ports shutting down and worker shortages at the 2 major ports in SoCal, but I firmly believe that our desire to limit inventory and run on a just in time process really screwed everyone up to the point there was no breathing room for supply shortages.

 

[DogDadDave]

Everything. You are seeing it live on the news. I work for a major automaker, and everything from chips to paint to tape to tooling is delayed. We're reformulating coatings due to material that we foresee running out, adjusting new model production start dates due to suppliers and equipment that won't be ready in time, and idling plants due to shortages of components we can't get right now. Prices on everything are going up. I don't know of a single thing that hasn't been impacted in some way, and if we're not seeing a price hike, it's only because our supplier is taking the hit.

 

[Jim_in_Delaware]

I agree with all the thoughts above, and also want to add increases in consumer spending as well. Crazy demand for houses, cars, boats, and many other items.

Jim

 

[Wake_Dude]

All materials I use have progressively increased weekly in price. 6061, 7075, 2024, 316, 4130, 4140, and 300M have all been through the roof since January. According to my suppliers, most of the increases have been due to increasing logistics costs/issues, i.e. transportation, fuel, lack of drivers, etc. Couple that with decreased supply related to decreased plant production and consistent/increase in demand have driven prices way up. Mix in a little inflation, and well.......Sucks to be a consumer right now.

 

[Wake_Dude]

.....So when does this end.

When we get a new administration! LOL. JK.

All jokes aside, has your supplier tried to push the shitty Chinese aluminum on you yet? This absolute diarrhea of metal is starting to enter the distributors warehouses in huge supply. The distributor will say shit like, "oh yeah, it'll be 3-4 wk lead time on your 5k lb order of Kaiser 6061, but we have imported 6061 available immediately (usually at a fraction of the price)". It doesn't take long to look at the big picture (not trying to be political) and realize WTF is going on. Fuck China!

For shits N grins, I bought a stick of 3" 6061 round and chucked it in my Doosan turning center. Used a proven program that has been ran on 1,000s of parts and smoked several inserts due to excessive chip welding (using flood coolant of course). That shit is extremely soft and gummy. Didn't matter how much I changed the feeds/speeds. Don't let any distributor push that shit on you if the situation arises.

 

[NewBoater]

Every place in town has now hiring signs up some with very high hourly wage prices but they just can’t find work. Too many people at home collecting their free $$ the government is handing out this year I guess and not wanting to go back to work because they can make more sitting at home watching tik tok videos all day. It’s sad really. I’m glad my daughter knows mom and dad have continued to both work hard through all of this COVID mess. We’ve been waiting on a ballast pump for our boat since March, but Yamaha has no problems getting them to the new boats going out. They could care less to take care of my warranty issue.

 

[Cobra Jet Steering LLC]

When we get a new administration! LOL. JK.

All jokes aside, has your supplier tried to push the shitty Chinese aluminum on you yet? This absolute diarrhea of metal is starting to enter the distributors warehouses in huge supply. The distributor will say shit like, "oh yeah, it'll be 3-4 wk lead time on your 5k lb order of Kaiser 6061, but we have imported 6061 available immediately (usually at a fraction of the price)". It doesn't take long to look at the big picture (not trying to be political) and realize WTF is going on. Fuck China!

For shits N grins, I bought a stick of 3" 6061 round and chucked it in my Doosan turning center. Used a proven program that has been ran on 1,000s of parts and smoked several inserts due to excessive chip welding (using flood coolant of course). That shit is extremely soft and gummy. Didn't matter how much I changed the feeds/speeds. Don't let any distributor push that shit on you if the situation arises.

No I have been using this company for many years, several years ago I tried another place that was a lot closer but quickly went back to the original place, they have a huge room with a computer operated laser that feeds in full sheets automatically and cuts them to the program, and they get my parts done very quickly. he knows if he gives me parts I don't like he gets them back and has to redo them.

 

[Ronnie]

From a consumer perspective, I’m having garage door issues, got a quote to repair it for $2,300 and replace it for $3,000. The replacement quote came with the caveat of a three month delivery estimate that is more likely to be six months. The tech went on to state that prices have increased over 75% on the past year.

Also, I was at Costco the other day and they had run out of toilet paper for the first time in at least 6 months, seems like a bad sign.