Lee Valley Frustration- Beyond Supply Chain Issues

[Kyle Grymes]

I am posting this in the hopes that it may grab Rob Lee's attention.

I'll start by saying that I am in the commercial construction management business- so I am fully aware of the unprecedented supply chain issues still plaguing all industries. I get it. Making it worse are the percentage of people in the 'chain' that are being opportunistic and inflating the problem- in the hopes of obtaining expediting fees from desperate clients that are willing to pay double for a Widget that is critical to them. Again- I get it- and I in no way think that is what Lee Valley is doing.

My frustration is that it appears their fabrication priorities (ie what IS in their control) are not as customer centric as I have always thought them to be.

I am not upset that I ordered a tool (Left handed Shooting Plane) in May and still do not have it. I'm a hobbyist, and willing to wait.

I AM upset that after checking in regularly it was clear that the customer service reps at Lee Valley had no more information that the seemingly computer generated meaningless date that perpetually gets pushed back ever 6 weeks- which I can see on the website myself. I eventually thought I'll just call Veritas direct and see if I can get a real idea if I am ever going to get the tool- or if I should cancel my order. Really that is all I want to know.

In calling Veritas I was able to glean a piece of information that didn't surprise me- but is absolutely not right. Turned out there were many people with a backorder on the Right Handed version of this tool- but only about 6 of us with Left Handed on backorder (and this was 5 month in for me). It was obvious that the production of the right handed version was being prioritized, regardless of how long the minority of us Lefties needed to wait. I am used to the world being biased against lefties- but this is an intentional decision, and not one I expect from the purported Customer Service guru's at Lee Valley.

The last straw for me though was advertisement I got recently for the brand new Miniature Shooting Plane. I was onboard with blaming the supply chain up on the reduced production and machining capacity until this- but somehow they have production capacity and machine time available to make a toy tool that is essentially their version of this years 'HESS Truck'- yet not an actual tool simply because I had the misfortune of being born left-handed - and their aren't enough of us to matter- is just the last straw for me.


So- Rob- if you see this- since I've been a longtime customer I will give you guys the benefit of the doubt one last time to address this- but it really is beginning to feel like Lee Valley is just one in the long line of companies blaming the supply chain boogie man for their own mismanagement.

[Frederick Skelly]

I'm sorry. I don't intend to sound like I'm discriminating. But you know that companies prioritize based on sales. Sales keep businesses afloat, especially now. I'm guessing LV will sell more miniature shooting planes this year than your left handed full sized tool. And if that's what their forecasts predict, I have a hard time blaming them for prioritizing the mini tool. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm saying I think that's how the world runs.

But whatever the actual reason for their decision, I feel pretty sure they arent being discourteous to you.

Fred Skelly

[Stephen Rosenthal]

I agree with Frederick, but I also have a suggestion for Lee Valley. Remove the anticipated “available by” date and simply put a “Notify me by email when available” link to each out of stock item. That’s what Lie Nielsen, Tools for Working Wood and many other companies do. The number of people who sign up will still give Lee Valley an idea of how much demand there is for the item and perhaps reduce or even eliminate the “kick the can down the road” customer annoyance factor.

Rob, if you go that route you can contact me for negotiations about my consultancy fee. 😉

[Kevin Jenness]

Maybe it's a combination of supply chain issues limiting their production plus expecting to sell more of the toy planes than what you ordered. Apparently LV's motives are not sufficiently sinister for you.

[Peter Schussheim]

I feel your pain brother but from EVERY experience I've personally had with Lee Valley, I would say to remain patient. These folks at veritas and Lee valley are doing fantastic work and servicing the community.

now, there are perhaps 5 dozen companies I can name and provide extensive details on their shameful behavior over the past 2++ years but that is a topic for another place and time.

[Rob Lee]

Hi Kyle -

You have every right to be upset - I would be too....

You deserve a full explanation (not an excuse) - and I will have that for you Monday - I will need to get information from staff, and they will not have access to it on the weekend (nor I to them, for that matter).

I do know it's not external supply chain - and it will be a matter of loads, routing, and scheduling.

Full answer coming....

Rob

[Rob Lee]

Hi Kyle –

This is going to be a long answer – so please bear with me, as I try and flesh out the context for production scheduling here. I have to outline some of the structural realities common to machine shop operations.

1) Every product consists or raw materials, processes, components, and assemblies. Components generally involve raw material undergoing processes, while assemblies consist of multiple components. Processes occur at work centers – and may be external, or internal. (I.e.grinding is internal, powder coating is external) Internal processes equate to work centers, which may represent one machine, a family of identical machines, or a labor resource.

2) As of May 2022, we had 1547 active products, 22030 components, 113 work centers.

3) Complex parts (like a plane body) will have tooling, and a routing through multiple work centers. The tooling will be tagged to a specific machine within the work center, and even to a specific face on a tombstone. Tooling may be set up to hold multiples of a component, and each component may need to be held in different orientations. Typically – this is all done on adjacent faces of a tombstone. So – production rate is constrained by tooling design. And, even if we have four identical Mills (say HAAS1, HAAS2, HAAS3, HASS4) – each tooling set can only be run on the mill it was “industrialized” on – to move it to another identical mill, would require “re-industrialization” – essentially getting the machine and the tooling to work together to create parts that meet design specifications. Industrialization can take as little as 4 hours, and as long as two days (during which time, the machine does not run). Eventually – machine capacity becomes fully consumed by scheduled production quantities running through the routing for each product.

4) The LH shooting plane body has 56 components, and hits 17 internal work centers. Focusing just on machining and grinding – which are the most constrained processes – a single plane body consumes 74.568 minutes of Horizontal machine time, and 80.037 minutes of CNC Grinder time. As a big bulky part – the tooling will only process a couple of parts at a time. I am told that our capacity for Shooting plane bodies is 13 per day.

5) Veritas is a standalone company, with customers in more than 90 countries. Veritas fills orders on a FIFO system, subject to production scheduling constraints. The intent is always to fill the oldest orders first – and allocate production to the oldest open customer order first. So – even for something running in production, Lee Valley may be well down the priority list.

[Rob Lee]

So – with some understanding of the complexity of the environment, here’s what happened in the past two years….

Externally:

- Labor shortages
- Lengthening lead times caused customers to stack orders increasingly into the future, which caused longer lead times, which meant more orders….. etc. etc.
- Some suppliers (outside processes) went out of business, or would no longer accept orders

Internally :

- We had multiple horizontal mills age out. They were replaced with 5 newer, faster, bigger mills – but we had to change all or the routings for existing parts, and re-industrialize every one. In some cases – we had to build new tooling. That process has been going on for more than a year now – and has another 6 months to run.
- Having run out of power and space for new machinery, we opened a second machine shop 2years ago, with about a dozen new CNC machines – and have now maxed out the power there.
- Also two years ago – we started to work with the City and hydro authority to upgrade power to the 2nd shop – and have just now received the first pass at a quote – construction and switch gear fabrication will take another year – we literally have machines we can not plug in, waiting for power.

[Rob Lee]

So here’s the story with shooting planes….from our VP of manufacturing (I’ve edited out confidential information):

- We are behind on shooting plane production. We currently have 3x RH shooting planes past due and 1x LH shooting planes past due.
- We have shut down two of the three large mills traditionally used to make these planes this year due to parts availability and obsolescence.
- Shooting planes have been industrialized on the new FMS system and can now run on demand.
- There is a campaign now to catch up on shooting planes. There have been 2x RH shooting planes shipped in the last two months and we have x on hand prepping for export orders.
- Many of the RH shooting planes shipped in the last two months went to export customers who have orders older than the oldest LH shooting plane order on the books for LV. For example, the oldest LV LH shooting plane order in the Veritas system was due in March 2022; two of the RH shooting plane orders shipped during this run went to export orders that were due in March 2021.
- We have dedicated resources to produce shooting planes until we have fully caught up with open orders (3x RH and x LH).
- There are 1.5X LH bodies sitting behind grinding right now. We’ll take a break from the RH campaign and switch over at surface grinding to LH to fill backorders.

I would also note that, despite their similarity – tool sets and routing mean RH and LH planes are completely different products, though they do compete for the same grinding resources. The miniatures are again, completely different products – and have no impact on their full-size equivalents. In fact – we sequence our new product releases to avoid hitting bottlenecks with existing products. We have dozens of new products waiting to be released.
Where we have clearly failed is managing expectation. We have to be better at telegraphing delivery dates – but even that is inexact in such a complex environment, and when something like a machine failure occurs, is can be almost impossible to anticipate the downstream impact – and it can be pervasive.

[Ron Selzer]

Rob
Thank you for the explanation, manufacturing is definitely more complex than I first thought

Ron

[Rob Lee]

So here's where we are today -

When finished our power upgrade, we will have spent 8 figures (yes....8!) in expansion of our internal facilities.

We have invested heavily in flexible manufacturing systems. Many of our products have already moved to pallet pool systems where there is no set-up required when switching production.

It will still take time to re-industrialize parts of the product line.... but as each product return to regular stock availability, we will be able to keep it that way.

We still have to reduce the backlog since COVID started - we are currently operating with production exceeding demand, but there is still work to do.

This has not been an easy few years for anyone in manufacturing. There was no way to anticipate the cascading effects many of us experienced. And - it will still be months or years before things are stabilised.

Hope this explanation addresses some of the frustration you are feeling. I feel it too - there nothing worse for us than not being able to hit targets.

Sincerely -

Rob

[Richard Coers]

That's a lot of text, but I bet Kyle would have just preferred a simple delivery date estimate. It looks like it could be a year yet based on all that discussion, unless I missed something.

[Rob Lee]

It'll be done in a week or two - they're through milling - and into grinding and assembly - I can see finished goods components starting to hit inventory.

Dates are most variable closest to delivery. The initial expected date is set when the order is placed.... up to a year ahead. Adjustment occurs as work orders hit the shop floor, and as plans solidify.

In a high-mix low-volume environment - that's the best anyone can do.

The ideal situation is to not run out - then the date variability remains unseen.

[Keegan Shields]

Rob,

First - thanks for offering such great products! I am a fan of your company and the quality of the products you sell. Your LH shooting plane is truly a joy to use.


Just a friendly observation - I don't think it is the long lead times that are frustrating customers. I believe most appreciate the supply chain/demand issues companies are facing these days.

The issue seems to be inaccurate estimates for when items will be back in stock with multiple extensions. I take a company at their word - if they say an item will be in stock on a certain date, I believe them.

One possible solution is: if the in-stock dates are impossible to predict, don't offer any. That way, you won't erode customer trust.


As an example, I'm waiting patiently for a LN #3 and am signed up for their email alert. When I get the email from LN that #3s are back in stock, I'll place an order.

That's different than continually estimating an incorrect in-stock date then extending it. Just food for thought.


Thanks again for your engagement in SMC and for following up on this thread!


Best regards,
Keegan

[Rob Lee]

Hi Keegan -

We do the "notify when in" as well..... but back-ordering saves the place in line, and fixes the price - it's usually the customers choice.

I completely get it wrt to dates (I have a Rivan on order , and the due date is "Jan-Dec 2024") ....the issue now is that they're very difficult to fix, and get right - so much is not in control.

Cheers -

Rob