Supply Shortages: How is the Electronics Industry doing?

The industry has been turned upside down. On one side are component manufacturers and brokers, who are posting record sales and cannot even come close to fulfilling orders. On the other side, automation companies like us, who are trying to defy this unprecedented global semiconductor shortage in order to remain capable of delivering in the medium term.

 

Our daily routine is defined by the struggle for components and preassembly components, massive price increases - occasionally by 100 times - and record acquisition times of up to 80 weeks for 3-cent components or chips, which are in low supply. Our purchasing team has to master the balancing act of acquiring material and avoiding paying utopian sums for it. In our development teams, all resources have been combined to maintain deliverability with short-term component redesigns. Many small series are also currently being run in production, as soon as long-awaited component part quantities arrive, in order to deliver urgently needed products to the customer quickly.

 

All this is associated with a lot of effort - for manufacturers of automation technology like us, as well as for you, as machine and system providers since price increases often cannot be passed on to the customer 1:1. Unfortunately, current forecasts do not yet provide any sign of easing in the supply chain. On the contrary, it is expected that the prices for raw materials, logistics, wages and energy will continue to rise.

 

As a mid-sized company, we benefit from our flexibility, high vertical range of manufacture and central production located in the Salzburg region. Even in these challenging times, we are pursuing the clear goal of continuing to provide automation solutions for all our customers.