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Lead time for new Intel NIC orders is quoted around 52 weeks

pcengines.ch

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Re: Lead time for new Intel NIC orders is quoted around 52 weeks

#171
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know the benefits of having a buffer but do we need buffers everywhere? As in your example, wouldn't be much better to have a buffer in the hospitals(or maybe some kind of regional emergency organisations) as a precaution for an outbreak instead of advocating for buffers across the textile industry? The problem with that specific kind of stockpile buffer is that it can become quickly depleted. No mask stockpile w…

You also need the ability to raise prices when there are shortages in order to encourage buffering. Unfortunately, the people who like anti-price gouging laws appear to prefer shortages and misallocation of goods.

> You also need the ability to raise prices when there are shortages in order to encourage buffering.

No, but I can see how someone would some to that conclusion by thinking narrowly in terms of pop free market dogma.

> Unfortunately, the people who like anti-price gouging laws appear to prefer shortages and misallocation of goods.

Price gouging is actually a worse misallocation of goods. It's still a shortage, but it just doesn't hit rich people as hard. If you have food stockpiles to barely feed everyone through winter, it's not a proper allocation to let the market price food so richer people can feast and some poor people starve to death.

Price gouging introduces a lot of (especially short term) inefficiencies as greedy parasites make profit-seeking decisions based on their greed and not social need.

Markets work very well in some contexts, but it's a mistake to think they work best in all contexts. Crisis shortages are not one of the contexts where they work well.

Re: Lead time for new Intel NIC orders is quoted around 52 weeks

#172
post #96

Just in time manufacturing contributes a lot to this shortage. We rely so much on integrated supply chain logistics, the pandemic clearly brought in to focus the "optimizations" of JIT manufacturing. The lack of local supply pools as buffer is so short sighted.

I keep seeing that argument every single time and keep wondering, isn’t there reason to implement JIT? Something like cost benefits outweigh the resilience risks? It’s not like people start dying on the streets, simply things are getting expensive and hard to get during disturbances. Are there calculations demonstrating that JIT the risks of optimization are more harmful than helpful in the long run?

It's a value judgement. You can optimize for the normal case at the cost of disruptions when the unusual happens, or you can optimize for the unusual case at the cost of inefficiency when things are normal. But you can't do both.

Re: Lead time for new Intel NIC orders is quoted around 52 weeks

#173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, similarly. We work with PLCs where the manufacturer normally has fairly deep stocks of all the PLC CPUs, expansion cards, etc - guaranteed part availability is one of the big selling points of using PLCs. Some things are still available but others are completely out, to the point where we're considering completely redesigning some of our smaller experimental projects around e.g. Raspberry Pis. What we do when RP…

https://www.theregister.com/2021/08/20/raspberry_pi_supply_e... rpi4 are already getting hard to find.

Repurposeable QuadCore ARM SOCs are fairly easy to find in the form of previous-gen Android TV Boxes, for fractions of the price of the RPI4. Some are weaker, some are slightly stronger, but in many embedded situation these do well enough.

Re: Lead time for new Intel NIC orders is quoted around 52 weeks

#174

Currently working on a new design for a client, it's quite a pain. Lots of things, even mundane things like connectors and such are out of stock / low stock and usually quite a bit more expensive.

Yep, similarly. We work with PLCs where the manufacturer normally has fairly deep stocks of all the PLC CPUs, expansion cards, etc - guaranteed part availability is one of the big selling points of using PLCs. Some things are still available but others are completely out, to the point where we're considering completely redesigning some of our smaller experimental projects around e.g. Raspberry Pis. What we do when RP…

I think that's already started to happen. I had to buy the Essentials kit this week because a standalone Pi was not available from any distributor, with lead times of up to a year.

Re: Lead time for new Intel NIC orders is quoted around 52 weeks

#175
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More profound misunderstanding. Influenza tests exists and are deployed at scale. In the US, I assure you that anyone in the hospital with a high fever of unknown origin is tested for several influenza variants. No one just "assumes" covid. That is total and complete nonsense. We have clear data on influenza hospitalizations (edit: and deaths) and the numbers are way way down.

> No one just "assumes" covid. There were many months where PCR tests were not available to hospitals and the CARES act gave hospitals extra money for covid cases, so hospitals obviously set the policy of “anyone with some covid symptoms is to be considered a covid case”.

https://www.factcheck.org/2020/04/hospital-payments-and-the-...

> The CDC guidance says that officials should report deaths in which the patient tested positive for COVID-19 — or, if a test isn’t available, “if the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty.” It further indicates that if a “definite diagnosis of COVID–19 cannot be made, but it is suspected or likely (e.g., the circumstances are compelling within a reasonable degree of certainty), it is acceptable to report COVID-19 on a death certificate as ‘probable’ or ‘presumed.'”

What else were they supposed to do in that scenario?

Re: Lead time for new Intel NIC orders is quoted around 52 weeks

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If computer network technology had been built on the same shortsighted business logic we would never have had the internet.. Imagine a link-layer protocol without any buffers, no retransmissions or any kind of resilience, built on the most optimistic estimates; that’s essentially what the “business world” has built with their irrational philosophy based around “the market”..

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Datagram_Protocol would like a word

While there are users for UDP, I would guess that TCP accounts for more traffic by choice. Of course there are sometimes problems associated with too much buffer too.

Re: Lead time for new Intel NIC orders is quoted around 52 weeks

#177
post #5
post #2

Whatever your opinion is about the lockdowns, there is one thing everyone should be able to agree on; they destabilize just about everything. I'm worried about people going hungry or not being able to heat their home this winter from the ripple effects.

Weird to blame the lockdowns when the real cause was the pandemic. It's not like everyone was going to continually working normally in crowded spaces with people dropping like flies in the hospitals. China especially was hit so incredibly badly in that first wave; it was always gonna go pear-shaped no matter what.

Before the official lockdown happened in NYC, the city was basically already deserted. Virtually no one on trains that didn't have to be, and restaurants/bars nearly empty. It was going to happen regardless of government intervention.

Re: Lead time for new Intel NIC orders is quoted around 52 weeks

#178
post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not using just in time manufacturing might help with short-term disruptions, but we're approaching the two year point on the pandemic and the associated global disruptions and it's just not realistic to keep enough stock in for that long. The current generation of stuff like CPUs and GPUs hasn't even been released and in production for that long...

I agree, but if a manufacturer has the means (physical and budgetary) to store a significant supply of components, they can order larger quantities with longer lead times, so they would still be more resilient in extended shortage situations.

This is great for that particular supplier, but an order for a larger quantity will just squeeze the inventory of every other supplier even more.

The problem is that we are trying to squeeze blood out of a rock. Demand exceeds supply, and it takes years to scale supply up. It doesn't matter if we are using JIT or not, the suppliers for the bottlenecks have all been working at 100% since essentially the start of the pandemic.

Re: Lead time for new Intel NIC orders is quoted around 52 weeks

#179
post #118

Just in time manufacturing contributes a lot to this shortage. We rely so much on integrated supply chain logistics, the pandemic clearly brought in to focus the "optimizations" of JIT manufacturing. The lack of local supply pools as buffer is so short sighted.

Not using just in time manufacturing might help with short-term disruptions, but we're approaching the two year point on the pandemic and the associated global disruptions and it's just not realistic to keep enough stock in for that long. The current generation of stuff like CPUs and GPUs hasn't even been released and in production for that long...

My understanding is that the 1st order disruption is long-over. The factories and ports are all back online, etc. two years out all that’s left is the ripple effects of the original ~6 month disturbance. It’s just that those ripples are amplified by the way the supply chain operates (just in time).

Re: Lead time for new Intel NIC orders is quoted around 52 weeks

#180

Just in time manufacturing contributes a lot to this shortage. We rely so much on integrated supply chain logistics, the pandemic clearly brought in to focus the "optimizations" of JIT manufacturing. The lack of local supply pools as buffer is so short sighted.

It’s not clear to me that any of the proposed causes are singly driving the shortages. The closest analogy in my mind is that our global production and logistics system is suffering from multiple shifting bottlenecks with secondary induced inefficiencies. Those new inefficiencies include JIT buffer exhaustion, related slowdowns, capacity reduction, priority inversions and resource contention.
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