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Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery
We try to do stock up as best as possible, but are faced with budgetary limits that prevent us from having everything we want. Some items we simply have to risk build season wait times. It also doesn't help that some vendors don't restock certain items until the December/January time frame. Based on that, we often chose to stock up on inventory we know we can replenish if we need a higher than expected quantity. If we run out of hex items in the middle of build, we may be backed into a corner. If we run out of round shaft, we know we can order them from anywhere.
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Agreed on the budgetary constraints. We don't have enough money to throw it around on whatever we see, but at the same, we are not frugal. I had a conversation at champs a few years back (forget who it was with), but they said something that really stuck with me; paraphrase:
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If we think we will need something in build season, we buy it. If we don't end up using it, maybe it will come in handy for another project in the future.
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We have not followed this 100%, but have adopted a very similar process. Usually place orders two to three times a week (most end up being small $$$ orders) to help mitigate the risk of parts being out of stock when we "finalize" a design.
Last year I started a reserve, or rainy day fund equivalent, for certain mechanical parts to include hex shaft, certain fasteners, etc. The items I withheld were not accounted for on any team "inventory". My reserve consisted of two 3' 1/2" hex shafts, a handful of 1/2" bearings, two boxes of common rivet sizes, and a variety of hubs. Definitely not enough to build an entire robot with, but a good amount of things to use in an emergency (weekend repairs, out of stock, etc). This is something you have to build up to, much like reserve funding that an organization may or may not have.
I understand and agree with your points, but wanted to share how we have implemented mitigation strategies.