Global Supply Chain Crisis 2021: Megathread - A cozy thread for watching the supply chain fall apart just in time for the holidays

[Super-Chevy454]

Sorry if that news might not fit this thread but seems then Apple and Tesla have some trouble with their suppliers in China.

Top Apple, Tesla Suppliers Suspend Production Amid China Power Crunch | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

China's power curbs worsened over the weekend when top suppliers for Apple and Tesla halted production at some manufacturing plants due to Beijing's tighter energy consumption policy, according to Nikkei sources.

Foxconn subsidiary Eson Precision Engineering, one of the world's largest iPhone assemblers and part suppliers for Apple and Tesla, announced today it suspended production from Sunday to Friday at its plants in the Chinese city of Kunshan in response to the city's environmental measures.

"The company will leverage its inventory to maintain the operation while production is halted," Eson wrote in a filing with the Taiwan stock exchange. "We expect to arrange production on the weekends or in the upcoming holidays [next month] to meet customers' needs."

Heading into the weekend, we noted several provinces with top industrial hubs were experiencing a crackdown on power consumption by Beijing. This comes as soaring power demand has boost coal and natural gas prices and goes against Beijing's promise to cut emissions.

Sources said Unimicron Technology Corporation, a major printed circuit board manufacturer and a top supplier for apple with plants in Suzhou and Kunshan in Jiangsu Province, were forced to shutter production until the end of the month. The company released an update Sunday and said it would boost production elsewhere to compensate for the loss of output.

iPhone speaker supplier Concraft Holding released a filing Sunday that said its production facilities in Suzhou would be suspended for five days.

Pegatron, which assembles iPhones, said its manufacturing facilities in Kunshan and Suzhou were still operating Sunday night but have prepared alternative power generator sources should the government reduce or shut power to their plants.

Sources said Foxconn's manufacturing facilities in Longhua, Guanlan, Taiyuan, and Zhengzhou have yet to be affected by the power supply restrictions.

Another chip supplier, Chang Wah Technology, who makes parts for NXP, Infineon, and ASE Tech Holding, announced it had to pause production on Sunday through the end of the month to abide by the government's order.

 

[CeleryStalks]

On the subject of Gatorade, isn't Gatorade a loss leader? (That is, stores sell it at a loss because it brings people in, who will buy other things at a profit.) Could stores simply be not ordering as much of it, abandoning this marketing tactic to save money however they can?
(I may be completely wrong here; I only ever worked two months at a grocery store and that was years ago, but I'm pretty sure I remember hearing that Gatorade was a loss leader.)

 

[Sneed's Feed And Seed]

milk and eggs have remained the same price and stay in stock

Speak for yourself. I can't find Heavy Whipping Cream at my local haunts to save me, that out-of-HWC shit usually starts next month when all the wine moms come out of their wine stupor long enough to start using the oven and take their loinspawn with them.

 

[PFM]

On the subject of Gatorade, isn't Gatorade a loss leader? (That is, stores sell it at a loss because it brings people in, who will buy other things at a profit.) Could stores simply be not ordering as much of it, abandoning this marketing tactic to save money however they can?
(I may be completely wrong here; I only ever worked two months at a grocery store and that was years ago, but I'm pretty sure I remember hearing that Gatorade was a loss leader.)

I don't believe so. I know the roasted chickens are, though. The smell gets my appetite going every time I'm in the grocery store and I probably end up spending more.

 

[Sped Xing]

I was planning to plant a wheat patch this year for the lark of harvesting it with a scythe.

Maybe my autism will stand me well.

 

[flapjacks]

I haven't seen mentioned is trash pickup. Shortage of drivers has led the providers in my area to pull drivers from out of state. They've also suspended yard trash pick up and cut house hold pick ups in half. Fucker is 4 days late this week.

 

[Ahriman]

Sorry if that news might not fit this thread but seems then Apple and Tesla have some trouble with their suppliers in China.

Top Apple, Tesla Suppliers Suspend Production Amid China Power Crunch | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

Pretty boy Elon was fucked over by Pooh, so it's only gonna get a lot worse for Tesla. This video explains how it all went down.

 

[Billy Beer]

Brit post:

Tesco is well low on fizzy drinks. I never go down that end of the shop where the pop and booze is, but i thought i would have a look because of this thread. Looks like they are running very low on Coke, other pop like fanta, Dr pepper is almost non existant and I didn't see any cans of Ginger either.

 

[BillyGoat2]

my dad went shopping at wallmart this weekend. He wanted some basic oscar meyer hotdogs and the shelf was fully stocked.

However he had to go through 20 packs before he found one that wasnt expired or expiring before end of month. and well over half of those expired ones expired on 8 September.

This was 2 days ago.

 

[melty]

I guess I don't buy a lot of shit because I honestly haven't noticed any difference.

 

[Info Player Start]

Things seemed well stocked when I went to Price Chopper today. Maybe the Mid West hasn't been hit that hard.

 

[Agent Abe Caprine]

The government seriously needs to get on top of this, gatorade is a human right.

Bodyarmor is better and plentiful.

 

[Mr Bunny]

Bodyarmor is better and plentiful.

 

[I can't imagine]

On the subject of Gatorade, isn't Gatorade a loss leader? (That is, stores sell it at a loss because it brings people in, who will buy other things at a profit.) Could stores simply be not ordering as much of it, abandoning this marketing tactic to save money however they can?
(I may be completely wrong here; I only ever worked two months at a grocery store and that was years ago, but I'm pretty sure I remember hearing that Gatorade was a loss leader.)

That would only really make sense if it was a product that didn't have a lot of sales velocity. During the summer, a busy grocery store can move thousands of bottles of Gatorade in a day; there's a lot of room to raise the prices and still maintain the demand to justify carrying the product. If it was just a profitability issue, they'd just bump up the prices.

 

[tehpope]

LTT's tech news channel mentioned the shortage story at the top of the page. Also this:

Passive components may be hit by shortages too - KitGuru

Over the past year, the world have been faced with a massive chip shortage. Soon, we may see passive

www.kitguru.net

Over the past year, the world have been faced with a massive chip shortage. Soon, we may see passive components also in short supply due to factory shutdowns in Malaysia and Indonesia, impacting the production of capacitors, resistors, inductors and more.

According to DigiTimes, Chemi-Con, Nichicon, and Rubycon are responsible for over 50% of the capacitor market worldwide. Currently, most of their factories are located in Malaysia and Indonesia, which have been lockdown during August and July due to the increasing number of Covid-19 pandemic cases found in the population. Unfortunately, the lockdown severely affected the factories, forcing the companies to reduce working staff and production, which resulted in a 30% to 60% decrease in shipments.

 

[Mepsi Pax]

Bodyarmor is better and plentiful.

That shit has like 60g of sugar. It's sugar, not HFCS, but when I read the label I almost shat myself. Someone recommended it and I glanced over the ingredients, didn't see anything absolutely haram, and bought it. Only after did I realize it's entirely made of sugar. Poison.

On supply topic, a few big-ticket equipment purchases I've made recently have been faulty. These are mostly American products with good reputations, but the assembly was shoddy to the point where one large industrial unit has to be returned as the welds are failing, I would expect to see more of this, quality has decreased substantially even with American built products. The reason car reliability fell of after the 2010's is a lot of sub-assembly components were sourced to shithole countries, if you look at some high end GM cars from the mid-2000's, the parts are made in Australia, Europe (lot of crossover with Saab in some models), and the like. Now it's Mexico at best for smaller, but still important components (like brake systems).

 

[Kane Lives]

LTT's tech news channel mentioned the shortage story at the top of the page. Also this:

Passive components may be hit by shortages too - KitGuru

Over the past year, the world have been faced with a massive chip shortage. Soon, we may see passive

www.kitguru.net

Don't expect this to improve in the short term. The Malaysian government in particular has been extremely schizophrenic in their policy towards COVID and are currently going through the 3rd round of unelected coalition government musical chairs.

 

[Deer Warts]

Mid-Atlantic, major metropolitan. Starting in the past 10-14 days, much frustration trying to find NON-diet Snapple. We drink the peach like water and can't find it in any of the places it had been freely available.

I'm referring to the cold-case size only. Not sure if the supermarkets still have stock because I demand cold Snapple.

 

[Mr. Skeltal]

Things seemed well stocked when I went to Price Chopper today. Maybe the Mid West hasn't been hit that hard.

Price Chopper has been keeping pace with demand save for a few items where I live. One or two bare displays or sparse shelves but nothing like the full retard moment that was 2020.

Recently I went out to buy groceries and picked up a bunch of canned vegetables on a whim. Almost every variety on offer was in stock at pretty dirt cheap prices.
You know what wasn't in stock? Gatorade and Flaming Hot Cheetos.

Fresh vegetables were a little more hit and miss though. The shelves were stocked out but not all of the produce on offer was in great condition. One or two floppy carrots, freezer-burned bunches of celery, or soft onions. You have to be more discerning with fresh produce at the moment.

 

[Raze]

chiming in on shortages I've noticed. I'm in central CA (not for very long thank god) and have seen many things go in and out of stock for a while now. the biggest thing that I've noticed during covid is my local grocery stores will stock brand new items that I've never seen in store before to mitigate how bad it looks to have empty shelves. it was something I noticed early on in the meat and produce isles. more "exotic" (and more importantly in season) produce started showing up coming in from Mexico, despite being literally smack dab in the middle of America's bread basket. the variety of cuts for meat started getting slimmer, and more "primal", larger cuts were being sold, despite them not being offered before. things like smoked pigs feet, ham hocks, chicken hearts, tripe, and beef neck bones started showing up in the frozen section. strangest thing about them is they never have a best by date printed on them anywhere, despite having a spot on the label where it's supposed to be. cheaper cuts of beef average around $5 per lbs (cheaper if getting a primal cut) and whole bagged chicken has gone up for the first time in 5 years. milk and eggs have remained the same price and stay in stock, but the variety of yogurts, cheese, and butter has gone down hard.
animal feed has gone up in price, variety has gone down, and trying to find certain types of hay has been impossible. in terms of stock normally held it seems that locally owned animal stores are having an easier time keeping items on the shelves.

this past month has been significantly different though. most fast food places in my area will not sell certain items due to not having the right packaging, and most places have their most common items wrapped in plain unbranded wax paper. places like del taco, Jack in the box, and McDonald's either won't have cups, or only have plain white plastic cups in just 1 size. sourcing any kind of plastic bucket has been extremely difficult regardless of what store you go to, and single use cups and plates are also always nearly out of stock. this hasn't happened at any grocery stores yet, but I've noticed my local Wal-Mart has reduced the number of isles they used to have, as all of the walking spaces have gotten almost a whole shopping cart wider around the store. the Starbucks near my local Wal-Mart actually closed entirely due to not being able to source plastic cups. more common processed foods have started to become scarce at the grocery when before they werent, and ive noticed that the grocery store's in house bakery has a harder time keeping bread and pastries in stock.

it's a bit bitter sweet for me that all of this stuff has been happening. on one hand I've spent nearly a decade using my free time learning how to live life without the consumer ease everyone has grown so accustomed to, but I had always hoped I'd never have to actually use those skills. I'd say I want to see it get better but honestly I want to see all of this JIT corpo bullshit burn in a glorious hellfire. makes me extremely thankful to be moving out to some actual farmland real soon here.

Semi-related to what you said about Walmart removing aisles, have you (or anyone else reading this) ever noticed the Walmart Cubes?

About half a year ago a local Walmart I went to (I have since moved) randomly removed a huge chunk of aisles in the front-left corner of the store. Roughly 1/3rd of a Gymnasium's worth of space- empty, gone, nothing, just tile floor. That's a lot of space. And then several months later it was replaced with a giant walled-off cube which they lazily put shelves against.
Obviously they'd wanna make a department out of that, right?
Fuck no, it's just A CUBE. There's no doors, inside or outside, just painted walls. No employee halls stretch around back that way, it's just walled off. Did they legitimately seal off that much space in a store for nothing? There's no department there, no windows, again- no entrypoint. Do they go in through the roof? Is that where they keep SCPs? Who knows! But I've been seeing them at other Walmarts in Florida as well.
Genuinely curious about these solely due to the perplexing fact you can't enter the Walmart Cubes. No door outside, no door inside, no employee access. You'd think if they had future department plans for them they'd at least add employee-only doors to bring shit in later, but nope. Nada.

I highly doubt Walmart is just trying to temporarily cover up for empty space due to supply shortages. They couldn't be going that far, right?