HP Prime out of stock on Amazon and HP Site

[Gene]

(02-20-2018 01:31 PM)Eddie W. Shore Wrote:  Stopping all production for 2 to 4 weeks: that's quite an extended break

All businesses who produce in China have to plan around CNY or they will run out of inventory.

CNY is an extended break for many reasons. Heading into the CNY celebration, workers will often begin leaving the factory city they work in early to make it home, which can be some distance away from where they work and China is a VERY big country. :-)

So capacity at the factory and also at the suppliers the factory uses begins to decline a week or two before the formal holiday begins.

Then you have the actual shutdown.

Returning from the holiday takes a while because people have to travel back to the factory city and many **may never come back** having found a job closer to home.

This means that capacity and production are often a slow ramp after the holiday, since the workforce has to be ramped back up and trained.

Lesson: If you need 100 units a month, then in Oct/Nov/Dec you need to make sure you have ordered enough inventory to get you through a potential 2 month dry spell.

Of course... all your competitors think that way too and so it is a game of chicken. You don't want that extra inventory early because that involves tying up your capital.

but if you wait too long, the factory may be busy building product for your competitor or someone else in Oct/Nov/Dec and they may have no capacity or raw materials for your order.

So...what to do? :-)