What to Know About Lead Times?
The time between the start and finish of a production process for a product or an electronic part is known as the lead time. This comprises placing the order, locating the supplies, creating the product, and delivering it.
If you are getting materials or goods from a distant location, lead times may be especially long. For instance, many manufacturers import raw materials from outside, and many consumers purchase finished goods abroad.
However, additional elements, such as sluggish order processing, ineffective supplier capacity management, delays at the receiving port, and much more, can also unduly lengthen already long lead time electronic parts.
Other contributing issues could include supplier internal subpar procedures or decisions to give your goods a low priority. Lead times for electronic parts may also be extended by delays at the freight forwarder or by using indirect shipping routes. These issues may strongly impact your supply chain’s operations and inventory control procedures.
Reducing Long Lead Times Helps with Inventory Control
Implementing a map that shows the movement of items from your supplier, their supplier, and all the way through the supply chain to your firm is a useful strategy for cutting long lead time for electronic parts.
You might refer to this as an enhanced value stream map of the supply chain. If this map shows the flow of products to the client, it will be much more helpful for minimizing Avnet lead times.
An extended supply chain value stream map will allow you to track the entire process, giving you complete control over the entire order. It will also make the inventory control process much smoother and simpler. Additionally, this can help you understand the exact events that lengthen lead time much better.
This information simplifies creating a future state map to shorten component lead times. It is a good idea to initially include your supplier and earn their trust because this is an attempt to reduce the long lead time for electronic parts for all parties.
It might be best to start by examining the product flow from the supplier to you and the information flow between you and the provider of electronic parts. This will provide you with some important details regarding the starting point of the procedure and, as a result, give you a good start in shortening the overall long lead time for electronic parts.
Factors that Affect Long Lead Times
It’s crucial first to comprehend what leads to supply chain interruptions. Identifying the precise reason for the long lead time for electronic parts might be challenging, although several elements are frequently at play.
Increased Demand For Raw Materials
The demand for particular raw materials and electronic parts may increase as technology advances. For instance, the adoption of electric vehicles and advancements in infrastructure point to an increase in the price of copper. Over the following 20 years, the demand for copper may increase by 50%, according to a 2016 McKinsey forecast.
If you already utilize copper-based items, such as insulated copper wire, these changes can be felt in your daily life. Unfortunately, there are times when the availability of raw resources cannot keep up with the demand rate.
Skilled Labor Shortages
Like many other sectors, manufacturing is experiencing a manpower shortage. Manufacturing companies are most concerned about retirements in their workforce because 25% of manufacturing workers are over 55.
A modest shift in worker availability might considerably influence the rest of the supply chain when labor is in short supply. Labor supply disruptions can result in delays of several weeks, from strikes to COVID-19 scheduling issues.
Shipping Disruptions
The transportation industry connects the supply chain’s various components. Even if there are no labor, raw material, or electronic parts supply issues, shipping disruptions can significantly lengthen long lead time for electronic parts. For instance, ocean freight capacity struggled to meet the increased demand when nations started to relax COVID-19 rules. Long lead time for electronic parts resulted from the shortage of shipping containers and the increased port wait times induced by this.
At the same time, there was already a driver shortage in the FTL (full truckload) and LTL (less-than-truckload) markets when the pandemic started. Increased component lead times, Avnet lead times for new commercial vehicles, and high consumer demand have made capacity issues more difficult.
Natural Disasters
The element that contributes the least to long lead time electronic parts is natural disasters.
Natural calamities like hurricanes, landslides, floods, and other weather-related difficulties can extend component lead times and Avnet lead times by delaying manufacturing and shipment. Backup plans and a regional variety of producers, shippers, and fulfillment centers are important in this situation.
Assume, for instance, that you keep your electronic parts inventory in various places. In that situation, you might have an item transported to its destination from a separate location to avoid inclement weather that prevents carriers from picking up orders from warehouses in some areas.
It might take longer or cost more (because of the longer route), but it’s a secure alternative to ensuring the delivery of your items and electronic parts.
Holidays
Make sure you know any dates that your manufacturer is closed so that you can prepare accordingly. Suppose you manufacture in particular regions of Asia. In that case, Chinese New Year shutdowns are the most frequent and disruptive and can cause long lead time electronic parts because many plants will be down for at least two weeks from the end of January to mid-February (the dates change slightly each year).
To observe federal holidays, it’s important to know when 3PLs and carriers are closed in each nation.
Conclusion
Like many other things, most individuals dislike waiting long to receive their orders. Because of this, eCommerce companies work to shorten lengthy component lead times throughout all of their operations to fulfill consumer orders as rapidly as feasible.
Long lead times for electronic parts, which can have a detrimental effect on the customer experience, are still a problem for many organizations, not just in the final mile but also at the point of manufacturing.
