Quote:
Originally Posted by Chief Hedgehog
I am sorry, but I disagree. In a supply versus demand market, it is the supply side that dictates the market price. Given a 10 month window, this is a very limited time frame for most manufacturers.
If FIRST increases the time frame, and RI3D as well as successful teams continue post their robots accomplishments on the intertubes, more teams will be demanding the same products that are being used by the successful team's robot. Therefore, more demand will be put on the devices needed to perform to that level.
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Um what?
I'm not sure if I am understanding you but 10 months is a long time. I am a manufacturing engineer, and the issue is with supply is sudden spike is demand. In the past, I had my line shut down to devout resources to another line because a customer bought 2 1/2 months worth of product (calculated by the pervious year demand divided by 12). We don't carry that much inventory hence the issue. Determining that buffer of inventory can be difficult. I have seen months worth of inventory thrown away because the product was obsoleted and its a huge waste. From a cost point of view, no one wants to miss opportunities of sales because a lack of supply and no one wants to be the sucker holding a huge chunk of product they can't sale.
In any of these cases, we would piss off our customers if we said," oh our demand was suddenly high and our supply is limited, so we are going to charge you more." So the supply and demand costs won't change.
The point is FIRST puts a huge spike in demand and some suppliers will guess wrong about what to stock up. In 2012 is was 6" pneumatic wheels. This year, hex bearings.
Even right now, I am investigating products I want to buy now that I think the team will use next year. Hence in another thread I asked about other SMC valves. I think we will be buying talons and victors for next year in june. We already have a stockpile on bearings, which will soon grow bigger. This is all to avoid falling victim to a part shortage and to gain a competitive edge by having material on hand to start building right away.