Originally Posted by
Shiraz Balolia
First, I can completely understand the frustration caused by back orders specially when one wants a new machine. Here are some things that are affecting the popular machines:
1) Jointers and planers - we have the lowest prices with very good quality and the end result is we sell more than probably all other companies combined in USA. Therein lies the rub. While it is easy for us to place orders (we forecast orders based on running demand), it is not easy for the factory to keep up with the manufacturing process.
2) The main factory making these for us actually quadrupled in size into a new facility, but that actually slowed things down for a few months. In the meantime orders keep piling up and the back orders keep increasing. Its one of those things where things get worse before they start getting better.
3) Last year the Chinese government decided to crack down heavily on casting factories (similar to an EPA thing). Numerous foundries were shut down due to environmental issues. This caused a shortage and delay from the factories that remained open. Affected many machines - not just the popular ones.
4) We hate this situation as we keep losing sales from customers who cannot wait and end up buying an alternate unit. We have hundreds of containers ordered, but can only get a fraction of that a month of planers and jointers. There is no shortage of us placing orders. Making machines properly is quite complex and requires many, many different parts and castings from different suppliers. The factory is adding new German made CNC machines as fast as they can, but one cannot just add a few CNC machines and expect shipments to double right away.
The bottom line is that we are on top of the situation from our end, have no shortage of the ability to purchase and hold inventory and hate back-orders as much if not more than customers. These are not excuses, just facts and we are sorry it is happening. By the way, some customers cancel their orders and then re-order at a later date. This is a mistake as they go to the back of the line once they cancel. We are shipping everything that comes in right away. One might say this it is a good problem to have, but it really isn't. The goal of Grizzly has always been to ship all orders received within 24 hours and we have built warehouses to accommodate the cubic requirements. We have almost a million square feet actively in use and it frustrates us to have some unhappy customers. This is absolutely not an issue of keeping just in time inventory - we do not do that.
Thank you for your business.
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