Continuing Supply Chain Issues

I have been sharing supply chain woe stories over the past year plus, ever since the Chinese commie crud took over the headlines. I work in the world of industrial distribution.

Many of those supply chain issues remain to this very day, and some are getting worse. I have been in the industry for 35 years (HVAC distribution specifically, a subset of industrial distribution) and with a mature industry such as the one I am in, supply chain always had ebbs and flows, however these were easily predictable and looked like a very shallow sine wave. Over the past year and continuing to today, the supply chain is very spiky and extremely difficult to navigate.

Disasters such as the Suez Canal closure and plants getting damaged in Texas over the Winter added to an already miserable time. Many businesses are opening back up and demand is surging as equipment that was previously mothballed or otherwise inoperative is coming online (and breaking). We continue to have transportation issues with LTL (for those who don’t know, LTL stands for Less Than Load, or semi trailers that are making deliveries of many skids of product to different locations rather than a straight shot to one location) being a disaster right now. Labor is a problem as many that were laid off have either moved to other jobs, or simply refuse to come back to work due to overly generous federal and state unemployment benefits.

The whole enchilada is quite the mess. Oddly, when I go to work in the morning I am resigned at this point to just saying to myself “I wonder what insane thing I will have to deal with today” and just put my head down and deal with it. When you get used to adversity things don’t bother you as much, I suppose.

I made the decision to never cancel any orders and simply take on more inventory. This hurts in the short term as cash flow and inventory turns are adversely impacted, but mission number one is to smooth out these spiky curves to our customers, so they can continue to make money – it needs to be my job to bear the brunt of this and to make it virtually unnoticed for our contractors. It remains quite the challenge. There will be major issues this Summer with imported equipment such as ductless mini splits, window airs and dehumidifiers imported from over there due to the persistent port delays on the West Coast. These issues are already happening. As hard as I am trying, I can’t get every product for every customer in these conditions. Most have been understanding. If they aren’t, well, I can’t unload the containers so….

Here is an interesting story about a different industry, flowers. I always take my wife out to a nice brunch for Mother’s Day. In addition, I always get her a corsage with three spray roses, the white ones with the red tips. I called the florist to order it up yesterday and the person on the other end laughed and said that they hadn’t seen spray roses in a year. In fact, when I go to pick up my corsage, they couldn’t even tell me what type of flower it would be. The shipment of flowers shows up and they have to make do with what shows up. She said that it was probable that I could get a single white rose but no guarantees. I told her that I could completely relate as I have been living this hell for a while too. She was pleased to speak with someone who was sort of in the same boat and went on to tell me that the last year was full of enormous challenges in the flower industry – that a lot of flowers simply didn’t exist to purchase.

While that is an anecdote, it is still telling of how we will likely see supply chain issues for some time to come.

8 thoughts on “Continuing Supply Chain Issues”

  1. Flower imports were part of the plot in WEB Griffin’s novel “Presidential Agent.” I wonder how accurate that was?

  2. I have signed on to a substantial monthly payment to get my little suburban cottage new siding, paint and windows. Yeah, I’ll be making payments on the work done for the next two or three years. But I’m glad that it’s done. The Casa Hayes is weatherproofed, the leaking over several western-facing windows is now settled. I am so glad that it has been done before the costs for it all went into the stratosphere…
    My home, my little patch of paradise, which will have the mortgage paid off in another three years.

  3. I bought a new Trane A/C system last month and it was installed in a week. The guys who did the installation looked very experienced and did a good job. No issues about delay. The old system was running but 20 years old and I wondered if it would quit on me this summer. They were actually recommended by a guy who came over to give me an estimate on solar but he said the A/C was so inefficient that he suggested replacing it first and then maybe do solar next year. My summer electric bills were running $600/ month.

    The same company tested my duct system and found close to a 50% leakage. They are coming over in a week to repair that.

    Had the timing belt replaced on my car two weeks before and they also did a good job. Both local businesses.

  4. I did work for a wholesale florist some time ago. I was surprised to learn that pretty much all the cut flowers in this country come from Columbia. They are air freighted direct every night on passenger flights. That, I suspect is the problem, no flights, no freight.

    My odd corner of the oil business has ramped back to near normal. Transport fuel, ground and air, are coming back a little every day. Diesel and gas is close to normal and never really declined too much after the shock of the first few weeks.

    I’m still getting a lot of ads from different companies that want me to believe that this “new normal” is going to prevail forever. In the real world, the masks are coming off and people that never missed a day of work throughout are going about their business. I wouldn’t want to be sitting on a stack of $20,000 temperature monitoring systems right now or a warehouse of masks.

    We burned up a compressor on one of our problematic roof units and it took more than 3 months to get it replaced this winter. we’re hoping they’ll all last through the summer. You want to open a branch in Dallas?

  5. MCS – replacement compressors are a big, big problem right now. Steel shortages and labor issues from what I am hearing.

  6. We make custom interior woodwork. Although the cost of hardwoods has not increased much, the availability is spottier than it used to be. Hence, when we find what we need, we buy more than normal just to ensure a steady production.

    Crating materials, on the other hand, have gone nut$. plywood, 2x lumber,etc. Triple in price vs this time last year.

    Thanks for the updates.

  7. Something to keep in mind is that decisions made when interest rates are near zero will look very different at higher rates. A 6% inflation rate probably implies revolving credit rates near 10%.

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