Small C-channel

VEX V5 General Discussion General Forum
1

I have notice that the small C-channel has been out of stock for quite a while, and I was just wondering when it will be back in stock?

2

Well, you can always cut C-Channels and get smaller ones…

3

I was talking about the Aluminum C-Channel 1x2x1x35 and 1x2x1x25 they are out of stock on the vex product website. sorry for the confusion

4

This is perhaps a little off topic, but I’m going to vent about this here…

Seems like dang near everything has been out of stock this year. I have been very disappointed with VEX this past year (I have been doing VEX for 4 years). It’s hard to improve your robot when none of the good products are in stock. Not a good way to run a business.

I was glancing around at various things yesterday…

Field perimeters - out of stock
Game objects - out of stock
Almost all awards, and plates - out of stock (how are people even getting these to hand out at competitions?)
Battery extension cables - “coming soon” (wtf, these were previously being sold)
1x2 aluminum c-channel - out of stock
EasyC - out of stock (how the heck is software out of stock?)

Things previously out of stock for a LONG time:

Skyrise cubes (kind of an important item to have enough of…uhg)
VexNet 2.0 keys
45 degree gussets
90 degree gussets
All sorts of aluminum
All of the new high strength shaft components
Accelerators
Gyroscopes
Power expander
c-channel coupler
The new shaft collars

These are just the things that I happened to notice.

Also, pretty sure the entire VEX IQ line was basically sold out at one point. Not sure if they finally got that sorted out or not…I don’t use IQ, but I randomly looked one time and almost nothing was in stock (not exaggerating)

I know they are a growing company…but holy cow. Anticipate the demand a bit better, and adjust accordingly.

(I would like to point out that the game they designed this year purposely necessitated a taller robot than previous years…ergo, teams are obviously going to be needing more metal/parts…not hard to plan for that)

5

I heard from my teacher that the local supplier here in British Columbia said that they weren’t expecting to get any until January. Don’t know what the situation in the rest of the world is though.

6

Vex has a monopoly, not much incentive there to have things in stock I guess. Robot mesh has some of the c-channel in stock, they keep a small stock of most vex parts and drop ship after its gone, you could try them.

7

Several tournaments last year ran without plates on awards and vex “promised” to get the plates for teams.

So VEX is actually almost a full year behind on award plates.

8

It has been very disappointing, and frustrating. We have had some issues with VEX parts being out of stock, but most of the trouble is the VEX IQ parts. VEX IQ parts were supposed to be in early November, but now they aren’t supposed to be in stock until early-mid January :frowning: It’s really hard to get a good IQ robot, then try to get to worlds in 1.5 months. Oh well, I sure hope that this doesn’t happen again.

9

Agreed. I do not know how to express my disappointment when seeing aluminum c channels out of stock right at this point. I plan to build my all aluminum robot at Christmas. Now that is not happening. And LCD out of stock. Come on I just wanna program…

For homeschoolers who raise funds on their own, they can totally turn to robotmesh. But for high schoolers, most of the times schools are only authorized to spend money on official websites. Which is why I am so frustrated. We are working to let the school allow us to use robotmesh once this time.

10

OK, we live in PA which is home to SAP. We have a mentor who works there. We can hook you up with the right supply chain management folks if you want to get serious about this. I am not joking on this one.

Your order to ship process is awesome getting them shipped same afternoon, it’s the ensuring the pieces are on the shelves that seems to be the issue.

First, I think the IFI supply chain guys need to be in the room with the game designers to adjust your forward orders to ensure proper supply. You probably have enough years to determine a trend of when items are typically ordered within the competition season (October - January are what I am guessing). But I share in the frustration as I order for 23 teams each week and have to tell teams their c-channels are still back ordered and try again next week.

Second, your RECF partners should be your second factor for projections. If you were the same company, they would have sales projections and quotas to meet. However, IFI just needs the projections of growth but in a few more ways.

Vex continues to grow like gangbusters and the curve should be moved upwards for ordering your supplies. Ensuring profits of current orders returns profit of the company versus just to funding a greater number of parts for the next season may unfortunately result in price increases which I know you are sensitive to. Financing these orders for growth would also result in higher prices. Using the RECF database and trending the team/event registrations should feed back into the part management process.

However, there are probably some additional factors or adjustments to your projections that might factor into the ordering process you may want to take into account. Totally unsolicited feedback I know…

  • Get additional feedback for teams becoming higher spend teams vs the general increase of number teams. You should work with the RECF event partners to gauge the regions for growth and change from clawbot to all aluminum bots they see for the next year. Spend grows by $500 a bot I would think. Which parts that is may be something to research. Get a few of them to inventory parts of several worlds robots.

  • Take into account expansion of geographies and new club formation. This would be for into game pieces and field kits as well as trophies. Get the RECF reps to project their new club growth goals and projections. they are your boots on the ground. As clubs get more into Vex or new geographies are tapped, more field kits and perimeters are required. This also leads to parts and trophies.

  • Take into account the new game challenges in the game design process for long lead times. You probably already do this to some extent but you may need to look at trends from early competitions and adjust again. This gets to the aluminum 1x2x1x35 c-channels. (They were out last year too weren’t they?) When your game’s minimum height is 24" for a goal post, these are your go to pieces. Are there any “killer robots” in the game design process using multiple designs? You probably did OK on projecting claws, linear slide kits, and motors.

  • Projections of new part uptick (hardest one to predict) but I think there was pent up demand for the battery extender cable. Some others may not have sold as well.

  • Selectively over-order a few things based upon multiple years of shortages or low stock. Those trophies are the same every year. Order them by the container load. Hard to justify just in time on these when for two years now you have disappointed kids by not having trophies available during the competition season. The math says this should be my inventory, but a shortage of X will result in a lower net promoter score or satisfaction of my customers. Management choices are done here that seem counter to cash flow.

  • cash flow vs new big warehouses… Sorry, can’t help you there.

  • domestic supplier alternatives. It may shorten the time to fill gaps but it will probably be at a higher price point for you reducing your margins.

Any takers Vex/IFI??? I’d hate for this continued forced single supplier yet shortage of critical parts situation to drive folks to FTC where the price point is higher.

11

I agree, my team was given homemade trophies many times last year bc of the backorder, and the school still has not been given some of the trophies we won.

12

We as a community can/should fix this.
I have like 18 awards in a box collecting dust that I would be perfectly willing to donate and just keep the old plates. (any Northern California rec people reading this?) Am I the only one can/would be willing to make that commitment.

As far as aluminum goes:
Really Vex… Really?

13

I think VEX can/should fix this really easily as well.

I am sure that the amount of competitions rises at a quite steady and predictable pace over the last few years, and each competition will need X amount of trophies. Add a few percent to prevent the current situation, and you should have a sufficient supply.

14

LCD is back in stock, also long C channels.

15

Thanks so much for reminding me jpearman. I will immediately start working on ordering them.