Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1477844
32 SMT007 MAGAZINE I SEPTEMBER 2022 consistent market downturn right now, they know people are a little scared about the pos- sibility of a recession, so some orders are getting pushed out or canceled. at's to our benefit, but we still have so many we are chasing right now. For the teams at our sites, our priority is working the relation- ships with our suppliers, lever- aging our customer relation- ships, and doing anything we can to resolve these shortages. We are asking our customers for an extended forecast, where we can obviously get the pipe- line out there. Most of our customers are well educated now. Many of them have brought in supply chain experts, oen from the EMS sup- plier industry, so they understand what's going on and the reason we need to forecast. We do anything to help, including long lead BOMs, safety stock, and others. Johnson: Are you getting better forecasts from your customers? Lentz: Some of them. Some are still hesitant to hedge on their demand, which is understand- able. Joe Garcia: We're getting more visibility in the forecast, but whether they're actually bet- ter, we don't know. Some things we assume to be true (and may not be) are that custom- ers might be double ordering, or they may be giving signals to excite the supply chain—they may think that it is going to create more action around getting parts. We're getting more vis- ibility by way of forecast; I just don't know if they're more accurate yet. Johnson: When I was visiting your facility recently, I asked whether customers' behaviors were changing. Were they, for example, send- ing more kitted parts? Are you seeing behav- ior changes from your custom- ers? For example, trying to take more control over sourcing the parts themselves in this envi- ronment? Lentz: At the NPI center we've seen more consigned kits, but not that many more from a pro- duction level. Are customers trying to pipeline more? Yes, some. When Joe brings in a new customer and he says, "ey've been pipelining the long lead time components," there's nothing better than that. We are seeing a little bit of change in behavior in that, but we're still the victims of a lack of forecast where we have a 52-week quote, the order comes in at 15 weeks, then the load and chase begins. Johnson: It must be an order of magnitude that is more complex right now? Lentz: I've been in the business 35 years, in sup- ply chain for 32 years, and it's by far the most challenging set of circumstances I have ever seen. ere are so many things at play. We must be careful what we're bringing in, but you can't just push everything out. With the mar- ket the way it is now, if you have a 52-week part you can't push parts out to line up with that, or you'll risk going to the back of the line; distrib- utors and the manufacturers will shi them to someone. We must be savvy. Obviously, there's pressure to push out inventory, and if it is very high dollars, we will look to partner with our customers to help us cover the inventory costs, to pay for it and let us put it in consignment. We've had some good reactions from our customers on that. As we further educate them, they understand that we can't just push it out. But we also don't want to bring in millions of dollars in parts if one part keeps us from shipping. We're trying many different avenues to resolve those, including Chris Lentz