New Products for 2016: Speculation, Wants

[Greg Needel]

Originally Posted by Oblarg

This is my biggest "want" for FRC suppliers this season, right here. I don't care much about new products. I want FRC suppliers to keep the products they list on their websites in stock for longer than the first few hours of build season, and ship them in a timely manner.

As suppliers we want this too. The big issue comes from the fact that each year the game changes and with it comes changes in demand for items. It is almost impossible to predict what item will be popular. To add to the issue, nobody wants inventory at the end of the season because after April any inventory will most likely not sell again until the next year. That inventory is "money sitting on a shelf." If funds are wrapped up, that is less money we can spend on other things like R&D, tooling for new products, travel to support events, etc. While not good for the teams, from a straight business case it is better to sell out than overshoot.

All that being said, FIRST suppliers ( and I know first hand this is true for REV, AndyMark, & vex, and I presume others) will do whatever we can during the season to get product to teams that need it. The example I can give is last year when REV extrusion and linear motion parts went out of stock in the first week of the season we produced and sent more than 1000 pieces of it via air freight from our manufacturer to get it in stock. Air freight rates at the time were right around $6/kg. Quite a bit of money was spent on shipping, to the point where we basically sold our extrusion at zero margin (or a bit of a loss depending on what is amortized into its cost). Did we have to do this, no. Would we do it again, yes. Most of the team centric suppliers are mentors on teams and we all know what it is like during build season. Every effort is made to provide you all with the parts you want, when you want.

It is a really hard problem, that is worse for small suppliers but we will keep trying to improve and always appreciate your support.

[GeeTwo]

Originally Posted by Lil' Lavery

Thunderhex is out of stock, and hex products in general have a nasty habit of going out of stock during build season.

Originally Posted by Oblarg

I want FRC suppliers to keep the products they list on their websites in stock for longer than the first few hours of build season, and ship them in a timely manner.

Originally Posted by AdamHeard

That's more difficult than people think.

Originally Posted by Greg Needel

As suppliers we want this too. The big issue comes from the fact that each year the game changes and with it comes changes in demand for items.

Case in point - 3946 in 2015. For our first three years, we did not purchase any shaft stock online. For 2012 and 2013, we had no need to drive any long shafts larger than 3/16", and those were for feeding small game pieces. 2014, we did have some keyways cut in some rolled steel by NASA for our pickups; we had one of the common "U-bar with rollers" pickups. For 2015, we ordered 12 feet of hex shaft for our two elevators; we decided to stabilize tote roll by using two chains, and long shafts top and bottom was the easiest way to get there. As it took us over a week to determine the best solution for low-mid resource teams, I was a but surprised that AM had it in stock. I would guess that in January 2015, there were orders for more hex stock than there had been in the preceding twenty-four months. Any company which keeps 24 months of demand in stock isn't going to be able to make interest payments, much less payroll or rent. I would also guess about the same percentages on holonomic wheels, as 2015 was the first year you knew you wouldn't get into a pushing match since 2001 -- well before (as I understand it) you could order COTS holonomic wheels at an FRC-affordable price, and when the rules didn't allow nearly as much COTS stuff, in any case.

This whole issue of one-time demand is why I love the international game piece option - it will increase the number of pre-sales of the game piece, making it more likely that someone will restock (and perhaps increase stock over normal levels) before build season. It would be even better if it were available to US teams.

[Oblarg]

While we're discussing hex shaft and the like, one product I really would like to see from FRC suppliers are clamping hubs. They're a very simple solution to most of the problems of positioning things on shafts, and allow you to use simple round shaft, to boot.

[tim-tim]

Disclaimer: Off the OP's original topic...

As Greg stated it is often not in the best interest for companies to keep an inventory year round.

Originally Posted by Greg Needel

... To add to the issue, nobody wants inventory at the end of the season because after April any inventory will most likely not sell again until the next year. That inventory is "money sitting on a shelf." If funds are wrapped up, that is less money we can spend on other things like R&D, tooling for new products, travel to support events, etc. While not good for the teams, from a straight business case it is better to sell out than overshoot.
...
It is a really hard problem, that is worse for small suppliers but we will keep trying to improve and always appreciate your support.

This being known, I recommend teams to buy some commonly used parts, materials, etc prior to the season starting. Sure you don't know what the game will have in store, but you will have a starting point. If you guessed wrong or over bought of something particular, it will most likely be usable in the following game or R&D effort by the team. The caution to this is to not try and build up an inventory of everything, and definitely not in one year. We have strategically phased into using hex shaft, box tubing, and others over the past few seasons. This approach was taken to use up the existing "inventory" of material and slowly build up the new "inventory" and design/fabrication practices.

TL;DR For a team, unused inventory is still good for future uses. For companies, unsold inventory is an added cost and potentially causes operational restrictions.

[Lil' Lavery]

Originally Posted by tim-tim

Disclaimer: Off the OP's original topic...

As Greg stated it is often not in the best interest for companies to keep an inventory year round.


This being known, I recommend teams to buy some commonly used parts, materials, etc prior to the season starting. Sure you don't know what the game will have in store, but you will have a starting point. If you guessed wrong or over bought of something particular, it will most likely be usable in the following game or R&D effort by the team. The caution to this is to not try and build up an inventory of everything, and definitely not in one year. We have strategically phased into using hex shaft, box tubing, and others over the past few seasons. This approach was taken to use up the existing "inventory" of material and slowly build up the new "inventory" and design/fabrication practices.

TL;DR For a team, unused inventory is still good for future uses. For companies, unsold inventory is an added cost and potentially causes operational restrictions.

We do try to 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.

[tim-tim]

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.

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:

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.

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.

[mrnoble]

We've chosen to stock up on motor controllers, thunder hex, bearings, and square tubing, since we know we will use all of those things. We will purchase gear boxes as soon as we know the game, and the rest when we work out the details, if anything is still available by then; otherwise, we will compromise or make it ourselves.

I have no beef with the suppliers over things running out. They all do a better job of serving their customers than almost any businesses I've ever worked with. The companies we purchase this stuff from love high school robotics, and they go way beyond to not only try to get us what we need, but to develop new and better products very quickly. FRC has gotten so much more advanced, so quickly, and I think it's awesome. That's why I'm excited to see the new stuff soon!