Quote:
Originally Posted by dawsonj87
I'm an engineer in the manufacturing industry-- this is exactly how it is. It's asinine how poor the communication is across the board and how disorganized manufacturing plants can be. The supply chain issues have only magnified these sorts of problems.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tcoat
It is normally not nearly this bad. The problem right now is that the domino effect has just kicked in and you never know who can't make what for when so everybody else is juggling.
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I can echo what y'all both mentioned and even express a little more after being able to move on from engineering in an OEM. From what I could tell with Tier 2 and 3 OEM suppliers were how tough it was becoming to negotiate contracts. Suppliers needed confirmed orders and delivery dates YEARS before fulfillment simply because of how crazy day-to-day operations became. Semiconductor parts are now being evaluated for long-term deals with multiple vendors as the GM approach of having one standardized vendor for parts for better QC is not going to cut it when they had to wait 3-6 months for part fulfillment now.
What only works for most people is how the cash flow aligns with securing long-term deals. If customer products are longer than 5 years, then procurement would justify long term sourcing and be able to negotiate for more "consistent" targets. Otherwise, you face the same scenario Tcoat described for casting orders being all over the place and NO ONE wants to eat cost for manufacturing if they don't sell enough. There's going to be a transformation in the OEM supply chain from JIT and it will be sooner than later most suppliers are going to have to adapt or fade away.