As the new year is well underway, we wanted to provide a Supply Chain and Product update for our valued customers on what you can expect in the first quarter of 2022, so your teams can effectively plan to meet their product delivery deadlines.
The Lunar New Year will begin on February 1st, 2022, catalyzing the most significant annual mass migration of people on the planet. Millions of workers in urban areas will travel to be with their families for the celebration, leaving thousands of offices and factories closed for weeks.
Tolerances directly influence the cost and performance of a product. Smaller tolerances can make a part more difficult to manufacture and therefore often more expensive. With this in mind, it is important to find a balance between the manufacturability of the part, its functionality, and its cost.
Cloud Manufacturing is the next great advance in lean production. In many of the same ways that cloud computing enabled software companies to be more agile, with lower fixed costs, and greater elasticity than ever before, Cloud Manufacturing will enable hardware OEMs to respond to changing market conditions faster, and with lower total costs than traditional contract manufacturing.
Prototypes for industrial automation projects, not to mention more critical applications, are routinely done in China. These same designs are then given to supply chain teams that place the manufacturing orders with the lowest bidders in factories all over the world with no regard for security or IP protection. Supply chain security - for the real, physical supply chain, is incredibly difficult. And we’re exposed.
