“The System Is Broken”: Boots-on-the-Ground View by a US Manufacturer on the Supply Chain Chaos
“We are simply limited to what our suppliers tell us we can have. It really isn’t supposed to work this way!”
For what seems like a long time now, Wolf Street has been discussing the apparently never-ending shortages that US manufacturers, construction companies, retailers, and other businesses have been struggling with. So here are the boots-on-the-ground observations by an Ohio-based manufacturer, with operations in other states, about the global supply-chain chaos. Todd Miller is the president of Isaiah Industries, which manufactures metal roofing shingles for residences and commercial buildings and sells them under several brands, such as Classic Metal Roofing Systems, in North America, Japan, and the Caribbean. He shared his observations with Wolf Street:
By Todd Miller, president of Isaiah Industries:
Over the years, we have seen some situations where metal supply was tight and caused some disruption for us and our customers. However, we’ve never seen anything like we’re experiencing now as it goes beyond just metal supply to also include the specialty coatings we use.
Supply shortages started in 2020 with Covid-related closures at the leading metal mills where we buy steel, aluminum, and copper. Once the consumer demand for virtually everything under the sun started to accelerate wildly in the latter part of 2020, mills were caught with shortages, and significant delays and backlogs developed – a situation that has yet to be rectified.
Generally, consumers are understanding of the price increases. But now delays and shortages threaten our ability to meet consumer needs. We currently are running about a 60-day backlog on orders, the bulk of which we are waiting for raw materials to arrive. Historically, our backlog was a couple of weeks at the most.
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