Why is it taking so long for production to come back?
- Thread starter grampi
- Start date
- Status
4wd
$50 site donor 2026
Waiting for you to lead the way … you are the expert after all …
Operative word here is WE. The rest of the world isn't fairing as well.
A number of factors, like pallet shortages will affect most everything. I read an article a few weeks back that pallet shortages will specifically affect produce this season.
Driver shortages as well. Some gas stations in the Denver area have run out of gas due to lack of tanker drivers. A shortage of pallets along with a shortage of drivers and you've got some bottlenecks no matter how many widgets you make at the factory. That's assuming there are no raw material shortages to make your widgets.
I read an article this morning that beer will be going up in price due to can shortages along with the price of aluminum.
We have a customer that bought every piece of bar stock they had for the size and material he needed because they had no idea when they'd get more. He didn't need that many right now, but if a machine shop isn't making chips, they aren't making money.
And these are just a few examples.
Driver shortages as well. Some gas stations in the Denver area have run out of gas due to lack of tanker drivers. A shortage of pallets along with a shortage of drivers and you've got some bottlenecks no matter how many widgets you make at the factory. That's assuming there are no raw material shortages to make your widgets.
I read an article this morning that beer will be going up in price due to can shortages along with the price of aluminum.
We have a customer that bought every piece of bar stock they had for the size and material he needed because they had no idea when they'd get more. He didn't need that many right now, but if a machine shop isn't making chips, they aren't making money.
And these are just a few examples.
What makes you think we're far enough along that we shouldn't be seeing these shortages?
Shortages are the natural result when you combine "just in time" production and distribution methods with any kind of sociopolitical or natural disruptions to the normal flow of good and services. The chain is only as strong as the weakest link.
Edit: One reason for shortages are a global shortage of shipping containers in the places needed as there are too many of them sitting empty in the wrong ports.
Edit: One reason for shortages are a global shortage of shipping containers in the places needed as there are too many of them sitting empty in the wrong ports.
Here it's because so many are living off the govt. Every business has a help wanted sign out and nobody is wanting to work
It would appear that is the case. Less than half of the reduction in employed workers, as a percentage of the work force pre-Covid, are back to work.
We experienced a shortage of glass vials for pharmaceuticals before the pandemic hit. Now, it's even worse with the vaccine packaged in glass vials. Supply chain is very critical in the pharmaceutical industry because we can't easily substitute. We validate our manufacturing process with specific ingredients from specific suppliers. If one of our critical raw material suppliers has a shortage we can't substitute in another supplier's raw materials. We need to perform stability testing and submit to each countries' Regulatory Agency for approval of the new supplier or even a new facility used to manufacture the raw material. FDA has procedures in place to prevent a critical drug shortage while they're evaluating the changes.
I can answer this from the perspective of an automotive aftermarket manufacturer. Like mentioned above we are a just in time manufacturer. Before covid hit we were at 3-5 week lead times. Currently we are at 12-16 weeks. Reasons?
Employees are the biggest. We cannot get enough people to work one shift, although we would run two if we could.
Price increases. We have seen material increases on steel (Our biggest material cost), cardboard, pallets, plastics (foam for packaging and urethane bushings). The steel increases have been scary big. Our (we use all US made steel btw) supplier calls us up and tells us that product already on the way has had a price increase, do we still want it? We've increased our material inventories from one month to 6 months on steel.
Supply issues. With price increases come supply issues. We've had truckloads of inventory ready to ship waiting on a single outsourced part.
Transportation. We cannot get trucking companies in to pick up product ready to ship.
All in all, it's quite a mess!
Employees are the biggest. We cannot get enough people to work one shift, although we would run two if we could.
Price increases. We have seen material increases on steel (Our biggest material cost), cardboard, pallets, plastics (foam for packaging and urethane bushings). The steel increases have been scary big. Our (we use all US made steel btw) supplier calls us up and tells us that product already on the way has had a price increase, do we still want it? We've increased our material inventories from one month to 6 months on steel.
Supply issues. With price increases come supply issues. We've had truckloads of inventory ready to ship waiting on a single outsourced part.
Transportation. We cannot get trucking companies in to pick up product ready to ship.
All in all, it's quite a mess!
Why not flip it around and blame the business for not wanting to pay more than minimum wage? How come there's never a shortage of CEOs? Or upper level management? An extra $300 a week isn't exactly killing it, it's just an extra $7.50 an hour but because employment typically gives you just half the regular wages, they're basically making an extra $3.25 if that. Or that other companies like Amazon, Costco, Target, etc are paying more and the ones who would have worked those jobs found higher paying ones.
It's creating very strange employment wage gaps. My company reviewed salaries and gave out raises to stay competitive. Raising minimum wages ripples up in strange ways. My observation is that you have a lot of college grads working jobs were a degree is not needed and they're making like $10 to $20 an hour. Once they get jobs using their degree, pay goes up to like $40 an hour. I've never seen as many help wanted signs as I have last week.
More like a backlog of demand and also backlog of components in demand. Our old manufacturing was just enough which clearly does not work when you need more all of the sudden. But who wants to be holding it all.
Production of what specifically?
Everything !!!!
That is what people want to believe. However many people who worked in shut down businesses moved onto other fields and reeducated themselves. Who wants to work retail, factory work, food worker etc when they have new jobs with likely better pay, nicer working conditions and better career path.
Locally businesses who pay well have NO ISSUE hiring workers. The ones thinking $8-10/hr is acceptable and then adding a few more dollars struggle. Not their fault shut down but now raise your prices enough attract enough help.
Everything? Most of the stuff I buy is not in short supply.
I can flip that. I just talked to someone who works for a city government. They cannot find people to fill the plethora of job openings they have. Water division, parks, sewer, etc. These are well paying jobs. That is one example. I’ve heard from others in the warehouse sector, plumbers, and other good paying jobs that nobody will work. So it’s not just retail and restaurant and other service jobs.
- Status
