Significant delays in shipment?

[Alex Cormier]

Anyone else having issues with suppliers/vendors and their significant delays? My team placed an order on Saturday, and the order was packed 9pm thursday, actually picked up from vendor at 7pm friday. With two day shipping it arriving on Tuesday....

We even placed an order from a different supplier, same day much farther away and got those parts last week.

From the manual:

C. must be able to ship any general (i.e., non-FIRST unique) product within five business days
of receiving a valid purchase request. It is recognized that certain unusual circumstances
(such as 1,000 FIRST Teams all ordering the same part at once from the same VENDOR) may
cause atypical delays in shipping due to backorders for even the largest VENDORs. Such
delays due to higher-than-normal order rates are excused.

Still feel as if this is a very long time.

[jessefredrick]

I am having trouble with AndyMark currently, placed an order last Wed and it is still in the processing phase....

[Chris is me]

Four business days? That's nothing. The Manual even specifically calls out delays of 5 business days (1 week) as normal.

should maintain sufficient stock or production capability to fill Teams’ orders within a reasonable period during the season (less than 1 week)

Services like Amazon Prime spoil all of us into thinking this sort of instant delivery is the norm. Back in the days where we all had to rely on Banebots, we had to wait more than 10 business days to get parts! That was brutal.

[BigJ]

You know that rule in the manual is to define what can be COTS (commonly available from a VENDOR), right?

So if you feel a certain VENDOR does not follow those guidelines, anything you buy from them can't be used in the first place (unless it is available from another vendor, I guess). Posting that quote isn't helping anyone's case except you trying to make someone look bad and not quite accomplishing it.

It's unfortunate and I'm sure we all wish everyone's stuff was shipped faster, but I'm 100% sure VENDORs aren't out to ruin anyone.

[FrankJ]

Realizing most industrial vendors only process orders during the business week... You place your order on Mon and it was shipped on Thur. Well within the 5 business days allowed by the rule.

The rule is really intended to keep teams from having suppliers to provide custom solutions as "COTs" parts.

Even industrial vendors are subject to the ebb & flow of inventory. They run of a certain shape of extrusion. They won't have any more until the mill runs it. Could be weeks.

[Mr. Ackroyd]

We were back logged on parts because a supplier didn't know the season was soo constricted, as such they didn't have enough to supply. Also, the company only had one person processing FRC orders.

[MrJohnston]

We've really not had any problems....AndyMark's been slammed, but they're very clear on the website what sort of delays to expect. This gives us the opportunity to either find a different vendor or plan around the delay. Twice we've simply found an alternative product. Moreover, AndyMark's stated delays are always "worst case scenario" situations. So far, we've received all of our "delayed" items in less time than advertised.