The Chip Shortage and it’s impact to Commercial AV.

Every project we have sold in the last six months has delayed product.  It’s become such a part of the technology landscape that memes of memes are worn out.  Game consoles, graphics cards, cars, refrigerators, audiophile DAC’s, water heaters…most anything that requires a piece of silicon is experiencing a delay in being manufactured.  Reasons for these delays range from too much demand, chip fabrication plant fires, and now hoarding in the form of over ordering by OEM’s are a small snippet of the general landscape of reasons that are being floated to explain this constraint in supply.  

And, it just keeps getting worse it seems.  So, how is CoitCom handling supply constraints and ensuring that we’re doing more than just saying “Sorry, it’s 5 months out.”  (True story…)?

We’ve taken the following steps to ensure that we minimize the impacts of these shortages on projects.  

1: Purchasing stock of high demand gear to have available for projects.

2: Confirming stock at the quote stage and not at the purchasing phase of a project.

3: Suggesting feature equivalent alternatives from the same, or other, manufacturers.

4: Being honest up front about certain features inducing long lead times into the project.

5: Over communicating with our vendor representatives to ensure that we have up to date knowledge about lead times on any product we specify.

These have led to us being able to consistently execute projects for our clients and ensuring that our teams remain working.  These are two critical focuses of the leadership of CoitCom and a key reason why we have long term relationships with our client base.  All that said, we wish there was even more we could do to even out stock, but reality will at times get in the way.

With luck being the intersection of being prepared and at the right place at the right time, we’re doing everything we can to ensure we are making our own luck.  It is a challenging market, but one key point that the leadership at CoitCom wants all of our staff and clients to know is that we will always over communicate the challenges we face that may impact a project.