Parts Shortages

RyanB

RyanB

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The Archer is undergoing an extensive annual as some of you know and one of the biggest hang up’s, as mentioned by the IA, are the widespread part shortages. He’s had a very difficult time getting spark plugs, a new Plane Power alternator an oil cooler and various other replacement parts that are back ordered for weeks. Any of you mechanics experiencing this too? Any relief in sight?
 
I haven't had trouble finding any "big parts" I've needed lately, but I haven't needed a ton of stuff. I did notice that Lycoming and their parts distributors seemed to have some strange shortages of small hardware and consumable type stuff when I was getting parts for the last engine I overhauled.

Come to think of it, I think some of those parts I ordered for that engine overhaul are still on backorder. I had to look elsewhere to find what I needed.
 
RyanB said:
Any of you mechanics experiencing this too? Any relief in sight?
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I've been getting an increase in calls from working mechanics trying to source certain parts. Just as in other industries there are some limited supplies. Only so many vendors that produce all the raw materials or finished parts for everyone. Just watch out for the bogus stuff or surplus stuff sold as legit.
 
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Lots of supply chain hang ups that spring in one way or another from your friendly neighborhood Worldwide Pandemic. Probably won't get any better anytime soon.
 
Spark plug shortage is surprising. I think thats just from the overall surge in GA activity for almost 2 years...or are there hoarders like TP and ammo?
How have the prices on consumables been these last 2 years? We get the catch-22, relatively low volume items are higher cost by not taking full advantage of economies of scale but increase the demand and prices will go up just because they can raise them, while still producing the same volumes.
 
Aircraft Spruce has in stock plugs, Plane Power alternators, and oil coolers approved for PA28-181's, what are you looking for that you can't find?

Nauga,
on speed dial
 
Have had sporadic inability to source oil, tires, and I'm still on a 4 month backlog (and counting) for an IO-550 crankshaft. Nothing grounding yet, touch wood.

New scimitar props are quoted at 18 weeks out. It's sort of hard to write a check for $Lexus and then not get the toy until next flipping easter.
 
schmookeeg said:
It's sort of hard to write a check for $Lexus and then not get the toy until next flipping easter.
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Tesla model Y’s are a 6 month lead item right now. One of many supply chains under stress.
 
fwiw, n=1 and all that jazz. First time I've opted to replace spark plugs since owning an aircraft (lord knows how old those things were *shrugs*). AP brought it up via text during annual last week, I told him to go ahead, labor was completed with forms by end of the next day. Either he's re-gifting me hot spark plugs or hoarding them like toilet paper in 2020, cuz spark plug shortage that was not a sign of. This was last week in Central TX. Angled valved Lyco 360.
 
I was told by a shop last week they were having trouble sourcing cylinders.
 
steingar said:
Lots of supply chain hang ups that spring in one way or another from your friendly neighborhood Worldwide Pandemic. Probably won't get any better anytime soon.
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No, it won't. And there are ripple effects echoing across many industries. A shortage of one part means a circuit board isn't built, so some equipment can't be made, so a production line using that equipment in an unrelated industry can't run.
 
RyanB said:
The Archer is undergoing an extensive annual as some of you know and one of the biggest hang up’s, as mentioned by the IA, are the widespread part shortages. He’s had a very difficult time getting spark plugs, a new Plane Power alternator an oil cooler and various other replacement parts that are back ordered for weeks. Any of you mechanics experiencing this too? Any relief in sight?
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I have a good oil cooler that I replaced on my Arrow II sitting in my hanger. Would it work for you?
 
schmookeeg said:
Then I don't understand kyle's anecdote in response to my propeller lead time, which requires full prepayment.
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‘Twas just a high profile example of how backed up supply chains are. I thought you were complaining about lead time.
 
Morgan3820 said:
I have a good oil cooler that I replaced on my Arrow II sitting in my hanger. Would it work for you?
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Thanks, I believe he already paid for one and has it on order, but I’ll check and verify. :)
 
kyleb said:
Tesla model Y’s are a 6 month lead item right now. One of many supply chains under stress.
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I ordered my 2021 Ford Bronco in September 2020. Still waiting for delivery. Latest word was a build date in November, but that's been pushed back once. Supply chains are all messed up.
 
I have 18 containers in limbo. Two have sat off Long Beach for 45 days already.

I’m running out of three types of items

1. Items too big to air freight
2. Cheaper items that can only come by sea
3. Everything in between.

I have raised some prices 100% due to freight and commodity pricing. Some of that increase was actually to slow my sales down until more product arrived.

I’m ordering more and more items to put in the pipeline as a lot of my competitors are out also, so my customers are still placing orders instead of sourcing them somewhere else.

The problem I will have is I will run out of money before this gets solved at this rate. All goods have to be paid for when they hit the ship.

the good thing is items that will arrive will be worth more than they were when they were ordered. The bad thing is if commodities and shipping prices crash, everybody in my position will be put out of business.

it’s a mess and nobody in our government seems to give a rats behind about it
 
And this is why there will be high value items on the shelf (think tv’s) but not toys

79CC0AF6-30C7-4CF6-86E0-A641BC9388A5.jpeg
 
cowtowner said:
I have 18 containers in limbo. Two have sat off Long Beach for 45 days already.

I’m running out of three types of items

1. Items too big to air freight
2. Cheaper items that can only come by sea
3. Everything in between.

I have raised some prices 100% due to freight and commodity pricing. Some of that increase was actually to slow my sales down until more product arrived.

I’m ordering more and more items to put in the pipeline as a lot of my competitors are out also, so my customers are still placing orders instead of sourcing them somewhere else.

The problem I will have is I will run out of money before this gets solved at this rate. All goods have to be paid for when they hit the ship.

the good thing is items that will arrive will be worth more than they were when they were ordered. The bad thing is if commodities and shipping prices crash, everybody in my position will be put out of business.

it’s a mess and nobody in our government seems to give a rats behind about it
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To be accurate, I believe they do, but not the way you and I believe they should. Explaining further would get me clipped for spin zone content…
 
1. Loosen regulations on truckers allowing them more hours
2. Same with train engineers
3. Push the ports to automate. At the Ningbo port in China, the busiest in the world, it takes about 20% of the manpower to load and unload containers
4. Hold the sea lines to actual regulations that are on the books.
5. Deny any further consolation of railroads, trucking companies and steamship lines. While all this has been going on, BNSF actually has been laying off engineers as a cost cutting measure while raising their rates 100%. No competition so they are a basic monopoly on certain lines
 
cowtowner said:
1. Loosen regulations on truckers allowing them more hours
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That might work, to a point. How many more hours?

cowtowner said:
2. Same with train engineers
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That might work, to a point. How many more hours?

cowtowner said:
3. Push the ports to automate. At the Ningbo port in China, the busiest in the world, it takes about 20% of the manpower to load and unload containers
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I don't think that is entirely the problem- I've been reading that the ports are full, waiting on people to get their stuff. See your items 1 and 2.
EDIT: Wasn't Ningbo port closed for a few weeks the end of August? That can't have helped getting stuff from China. Vietnamese ports were closed, too, about the same time. Again, not much our government can do about that.

EDIT 2: I did a virtual demo in Singapore 2 weeks ago because they were shut down, too. Again, not much that can be done by the USA.

cowtowner said:
4. Hold the sea lines to actual regulations that are on the books.
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Which are those?

cowtowner said:
5. Deny any further consolation of railroads, trucking companies and steamship lines. While all this has been going on, BNSF actually has been laying off engineers as a cost cutting measure while raising their rates 100%. No competition so they are a basic monopoly on certain lines
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Aren't some, or most, of those steamship lines run from other countries?

As for BNSF, a quick search hasn't revealed layoffs recently (this year). As they are a large employer in the Nebraska, I was a little surprised I hadn't heard of it. The consolidation on rail lines has been an issue for some time.

Thanks for sharing your perspective.
 
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Cap'n Jack said:
How are they getting around some of the problems mentioned by @cowtowner ? Once the ships get here, they still need to be unloaded, and trucks and trains will be needed to distribute the goods.
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Walmart and Amazon own their own logistics operation. (trucks, warehousing, and Amazon planes) They also have long term contracts with the railroads that push other people’s cargo off for their own

they are flexible with the smaller ports to bypass the delays in Long Beach.
 
cowtowner said:
Walmart and Amazon own their own logistics operation. (trucks, warehousing, and Amazon planes) They also have long term contracts with the railroads that push other people’s cargo off for their own

they are flexible with the smaller ports to bypass the delays in Long Beach.
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Does Amazon and Walmart pay their truckers that much more that they don't join another firm that needs truckers?
Long Beach is the one getting all the news, and has the most problems, but all the ports have problems with congestion. There are deep-water ports all up and down the west coast- starting from Prince Rupert in Canada and going south to San Diego, there are at least 25 ports capable of taking Panamax ships. Ships are expensive capital items, and like airplanes, don't make money while sitting around. If they could go to another port, I'm pretty sure that they would.

I agree that Walmart and Amazon have are large enough to have their own logistics which helps a lot. They also are more flexible than many other companies. My employer discarded "just-in-time" and other measures that have worked well under normal conditions, so we are getting sales from our competition who didn't buy raw materials when it is available. Another problem is "80/20", where companies give preference to their larger customers, as you imply with the rail-roads pushing other cargos off for the larger customers. The pharmaceutical industry has no problem getting lab consumables because they are large customers, while the universities generally don't have a single buyer- sales are to individual labs. what this means is that shipments go to the biggest customers (links below). Smaller customers get more delays, but if that small customer makes parts for someone else, that customer down the line gets delayed.

You describe part of the problem, but only part. There are a lot of parts to the problem, and I'm not saying your observations are invalid.

https://www.launchteaminc.com/blog/applying-the-80-20-strategy-in-advanced-manufacturing
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davela...matically-grow-your-business/?sh=4f1b16db3901
 
94BE0345-F96E-45A8-B6FB-1DD040810728.jpeg 9A50027D-975A-4BD3-8AFD-F1F996D7F12C.jpeg
Cap'n Jack said:
Does Amazon and Walmart pay their truckers that much more that they don't join another firm that needs truckers?
Long Beach is the one getting all the news, and has the most problems, but all the ports have problems with congestion. There are deep-water ports all up and down the west coast- starting from Prince Rupert in Canada and going south to San Diego, there are at least 25 ports capable of taking Panamax ships. Ships are expensive capital items, and like airplanes, don't make money while sitting around. If they could go to another port, I'm pretty sure that they would.

I agree that Walmart and Amazon have are large enough to have their own logistics which helps a lot. They also are more flexible than many other companies. My employer discarded "just-in-time" and other measures that have worked well under normal conditions, so we are getting sales from our competition who didn't buy raw materials when it is available. Another problem is "80/20", where companies give preference to their larger customers, as you imply with the rail-roads pushing other cargos off for the larger customers. The pharmaceutical industry has no problem getting lab consumables because they are large customers, while the universities generally don't have a single buyer- sales are to individual labs. what this means is that shipments go to the biggest customers (links below). Smaller customers get more delays, but if that small customer makes parts for someone else, that customer down the line gets delayed.

You describe part of the problem, but only part. There are a lot of parts to the problem, and I'm not saying your observations are invalid.

https://www.launchteaminc.com/blog/applying-the-80-20-strategy-in-advanced-manufacturing
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davela...matically-grow-your-business/?sh=4f1b16db3901
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Walmart is bringing in ships to less congested ports. They are trucking to their own distribution centers and then trucking from there inland. (They keep truckers with a golden parachute retirement plan. If they quit for more money they are losing company match to their 401k for the last five years. )

why can’t the rest of us do that?
I am in DFW. My contract is with BNSF. Their rail line comes from Long Beach into Alliance Fort Worth. Up until last year the system worked about 90% of the time. I am located about 5 miles from the rail terminal and the trucking companies loved me because they got a contract rate of $350 to haul a container 10 miles. To haul goods from The west coast inland by truck for me would cost nearly $6,000 per load. On top of the $19,000 I’ve already paid. The railroad isn’t giving any relief if you don’t use their system.


I don’t have warehouse space on the west coast, nor the ability to move my freight inland.

I am now bringing in containers to Houston. Using a buddies warehouse to offload them close to the port and sending my trucks to retrieve the goods. The shipping lines won’t allow the containers to move inland from Houston to Ft Worth, with big penalties for having them out of port for over 24 hours.
It’s a complete and utter cluster. Once Christmas clears, hopefully it will get better. But talking to everyone else, and reading today’s WP story, I am not so sure. Everybody is over ordering inventory. I am building a new 15,000 sq ft warehouse to house my own goods and was offered twice normal rate by a friend of a friend to lease it to him short term once it’s done.

Just to give you an idea, the steel and concrete for this building cost me 40% more than the twin building I constructed 18 months ago. And I had to prepay for the concrete a month in advance just to get it. This whole system is fixing to seize

typed this on my phone while waiting on a container to arrive at our warehouse. Of course we had an appointment for 7:30am and now they are telling me 4:00pm

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2021/supply-chain-issues/94BE0345-F96E-45A8-B6FB-1DD040810728.jpeg
 
Cap'n Jack said:
That might work, to a point. How many more hours?


That might work, to a point. How many more hours? Get rid of all the regulations that hamper the truckers and rail until this gets resolved, let the truckers and engineers decide. Treat them as grownups. Weight limits, hours, reporting requirements, etc. Until this is treated as the emergency it is, it won't be solved. There is going to be shortages of more than Christmas trees in a matter of weeks. It's going to seize our economy sooner rather than later if not addressed. You think a few SWA pilots calling in sick caused havoc this weekend, wait until every factory and every supplier starts laying off staff due to not having inventory and parts. I got a little out ahead of my competition, so I should be able to limp along, but if something doesn't change soon, I will have to adjust my operation that will definitely affect my employees and customers in a detrimental way


I don't think that is entirely the problem- I've been reading that the ports are full, waiting on people to get their stuff. See your items 1 and 2.
EDIT: Wasn't Ningbo port closed for a few weeks the end of August? That can't have helped getting stuff from China. Vietnamese ports were closed, too, about the same time. Again, not much our government can do about that. You are right, and it should have actually cleared some of the congestion here but it didn't Vietnam is still basically shut down, I have two containers supposed to leave the 15th of October and just got bumped to Nov 1. Ningbo Port cleared the backlog within a week of returning to work, had a container ship out of there last thursday.

EDIT 2: I did a virtual demo in Singapore 2 weeks ago because they were shut down, too. Again, not much that can be done by the USA. Singapore is basically a transit point for other ports in SE Asia, they have moved a lot of the trans loading to other ports, because Asians find efficiencies, while we sit around and say "Its always been done that way"


Which are those? I could look up chapter and verse, but basically there are regulations that outline how and when the steamship lines can alter contracts. They have not followed those rules. They are also changing the rules daily and implementing fees and demurrage charges that are outside of their contracts. If you don't pay, you don't get service. It is literal highway robbery. We basically let the steamship lines go unregulated and then force all these regulations downstream on truckers and rail. If we are going to be the wild west, then let the whole system do what they want.

Aren't some, or most, of those steamship lines run from other countries? They are all owned outside of US. But they trade here on our stock exchanges and they come to our ports.

As for BNSF, a quick search hasn't revealed layoffs recently (this year). As they are a large employer in the Nebraska, I was a little surprised I hadn't heard of it. The consolidation on rail lines has been an issue for some time. It's not a recent issue, it goes back years of them consolidating and downsizing the workforce. See today's WSJ article posted above about some examples of it.

Thanks for sharing your perspective.
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cowtowner said:
(They keep truckers with a golden parachute retirement plan. If they quit for more money they are losing company match to their 401k for the last five years. )
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That's not a "golden parachute". They lose only if the leave prior to three or six years, and they only lose that portion for which they aren't vested.
"A golden parachute is an agreement between a company and an employee (usually an upper executive) specifying that the employee will receive certain significant benefits if employment is terminated. These may include severance pay, cash bonuses, stock options, or other benefits."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_parachute

I'll grant that it is an incentive for the truckers to stay, but let's not call it something it isn't!

Edit: According to the reference below (I don't know if it is authoritative), Walmart can't take away the company match if the driver has been with the company more than 6 years (graded match), or three years (cliff schedule). So a driver with Walmart for 6 or more years can jump to someone with higher pay and lose nothing.
https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-a-vesting-schedule-and-how-does-it-work-4047274


cowtowner said:
why can’t the rest of us do that?
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Please note my comments on "80/20". The biggest 20% of the shipping company's customers will be affected minimally. I'm sorry, but you are in the 80%.

cowtowner said:
I am now bringing in containers to Houston. Using a buddies warehouse to offload them close to the port and sending my trucks to retrieve the goods. The shipping lines won’t allow the containers to move inland from Houston to Ft Worth, with big penalties for having them out of port for over 24 hours.
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I'm pretty sure that the containers belong to whoever owns the ship, and they want the empties back so they can be loaded on the return trip. Note my earlier comment on ships sitting around. Leaving an empty container helps contribute to the congestion in the port.

So it seems you can ship to a port more local to you than California? Why can't BNSF bring it from Houston to you? It seems part of the information is missing.
https://www.bnsf.com/bnsf-resources...d-shipping-locations/intermodal-map-large.pdf
 
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Unfortunately, we have those regulations on duty time because people chose to push things too much. As for industries regulating themselves, what happened with the 737Max? There should be some happy medium.

Some of the changes you want for the ports, are things that would be unpalatable in this society, but they can do in most Asian countries.
From your WAPO reference:
"Yet the United States is “decades behind” foreign ports in getting carriers, terminals and shippers to provide each other access to commercial data for planning purposes, said Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles. Concerns over data privacy, business secrets and security have resulted in a fragmented approach. Individual ports operate as separate fiefdoms rather than as part of a national system."
It's interesting that the answers seem to be to reduce regulation in one industry, but increase it in others! Making it a national system takes away at least some of the autonomy the different companies have now.

As for the ship operators, if they are truly in breach of contract, that is surely grounds for lawsuits.
 
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Brad Z said:
I ordered my 2021 Ford Bronco in September 2020. Still waiting for delivery. Latest word was a build date in November, but that's been pushed back once. Supply chains are all messed up.
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some folks who have ordered Bronco have expectation of getting the car sometime in 2022-23 :(
 
WannFly said:
some folks who have ordered Bronco have expectation of getting the car sometime in 2022-23 :(
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No doubt. If you ordered one now that's what you're looking at. I hope the truck lives up to the hype; all of the folks who've taken delivery of it seem to love it, but then again there's some extreme confirmation bias going on after having waited a year for it.
 
Took a few weeks to get an overhauled DG.
 
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