Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1475010
22 SMT007 MAGAZINE I AUGUST 2022 Olson: And from what I've seen, it seems like customers are less apt to try to return parts due to the shortages. Like you said, there's $2 mil- lion sitting there in the EMS warehouse ready to be consumed. I have a suspicion that we haven't seen as many return attempts as we do in a typical year. Andy Shaughnessy: Do you have any tips for someone for whom you're trying to design a board when they need components with a 50-week lead time, for example? Do you have recommendations? How do you communicate that? Olson: We have a technical support team for customers. If they're looking for an alternative part, we can help with product selection. Of course, our top-running parts are out of stock because they're the most popular parts. But when it comes to those newer designs, we still have a lot of stock available. And maybe there are parts that weren't as popular that become useful now. ere are a lot of parts on our website, and being able to find the right one can sometimes be a bit tricky. Some people call them "sleep- ing beauties." ey're parts that really haven't done well for whatever reason, but now that the demand has chewed up some of the highest running parts, those parts suddenly are doing very well. If there are parts that you absolutely need, I would just encourage you to place them on back order with us because we are very reg- imented. I would recommend reaching out to us and saying, "is is what I'm wanting to do. What do you have in stock that allows us to do that?" It might not be the first choice, but it could get you off the ground and running. Johnson: Digi-Key has historically done quite a lot of business in cut-tape especially for pro- totype small quantities. But that's not all you do. You supply to production as well, but cut- tape happens to be the forefront, to most of the engineering community for Digi-Key. How do you manage those two unique needs for the same parts? How do you balance that? Olson: It's tough. Typically, the manufacturer will allocate a certain number of parts. When those parts are in very high demand, in certain cases Digi-Key tries to limit how many parts a customer can purchase at a time, which helps us spread the inventory around—more people can get some parts vs. one customer getting all the parts. We're not going to take parts that were destined to you and give them to a high- volume production buyer. Whoever is in line first, gets the parts. If customers are watching the inventory on our website and every day it's at zero, they might conclude that we're not getting any parts. at's not the case—it's just that we're distributing those parts out through the back- orders, so that inventory flow doesn't reflect These photos were taken by Digi-Key upon receipt of the product (RMA) from the customer.