CHIP SHORTAGE COPING STRATEGIES g
similar components from the same providers, and a mutual customer base containing top Fortune 100 companies, Zebra now has a lot more leverage to negotiate with semiconductor suppliers. Other leaders in the machine vision
space have been able to weather the semiconductor crisis well too, also in part because of their purchasing power. Basler, Stemmer Imaging and Cognex all posted strong revenue results for 2021, with Basler and Stemmer’s sales up by 26 per cent on 2020, and Cognex’s revenues exceeding a billion dollars for the first time, though Cognex shares fell by almost 14 per cent in May as a result of slowing growth. Basler and others have warned that challenges in procuring semiconductor components are expected to remain the limiting factor for growth in 2022, and possibly beyond.
Shifting mindsets How are others in the machine vision space without the reach and resources of Zebra and its ilk coping? A key difficulty has been focusing efforts on R&D for new products. ‘Many companies hardly find the time to deal with new developments,’ explained Lickes on the Phytec blog. ‘Te effort required for rescheduling, design adjustments and procurement is simply too great in this crisis.’ Tough they have released two new
products this year, German machine vision pioneer, Matrix Vision, is one of the only companies to have openly talked about having to redesign some of its products to overcome component shortages. In
‘No one knows if we will ever go back to that just- in-time scenario’
a statement, the company announced: ‘We have initiated a redesign based on alternative components with reliable availability as quickly as possible in order to ensure delivery capability.’ Affected products are the GigE camera series MvBlueCougar-X and MvBlueFox3 series, though they retain the same product designations and mechanical properties as their original versions. For most others though, product
redesigns are not a viable option. Tey need specific components but find themselves at the end of a long queue. Tis is where distributors have been playing a critical role. ‘Te role of the distributor shouldn’t be underestimated,’ said Allan Anderson, managing director of UK-based Clearview Imaging, a machine vision component supplier. ‘Tere’s a myth, especially in Europe, that the only cameras that are available quickly are from Chinese manufacturers, but I think that does a disservice to well-run distributors who are making sure they have stuff on shelves.’ However, despite the best efforts of
distributors, there is no getting away from the fact that shortages remain, and will continue to remain, a bottleneck to supplying machine vision products. As a result, all parts of the industry have had to shift their mindsets and expectations just to keep afloat.
‘Just-in-time manufacturing pre-Covid
meant that people expected a distributor or manufacturer to have any sort of quantity available instantly, or within a week,’ said Anderson. ‘No one knows if we will ever go back
to that just-in-time scenario.’ He went on to explain that the meaning of a long lead time has changed, from six to eight weeks pre-pandemic, to up to 12 months today. And this has been a hard pill to swallow for many. ‘It’s tough for a lot of customers,’ he said. ‘Tey find it very difficult to understand, at a macro level, how and why this is happening.’ For him, the key is planning and
flexibility: ‘I think the best customers are willing to work in an agile way.’ Te same applies to his own company, Clearview Imaging. Over the past two years, Clearview has optimised its forecasting and stocking formula and model, so they always have stock parts. ‘We’ve always talked about being
experts in machine vision, but we now have to realise we really need to push the boundaries of being experts in operations,’ he added. ‘Tis is about improving your processes, whether that means forecasting or purchasing or whatever – that’s the challenge for any company working through this.’ Montanari feels the most important
elements of riding out this storm, at least for Zebra, have been communication
‘Tere has to be real transparent communication across the whole ecosystem’
and transparency across the supply chain. ‘Tere has to be real transparent communication across the whole ecosystem, where people are very realistic in expressing their demands, and suppliers even more realistic in communicating their abilities to supply.’ In his Phytec interview, Lickes
also emphasised transparency and communication. He said his company identified five key areas to keep the wheels turning: close supplier relationships; intensive customer contact; flexible product designs and parts lists; transparent pricing policy; and consistent focus on the latest component generations. But regardless of the approach to
weathering the crisis, size of the company or position in the supply chain, all parties can agree on one thing: the semiconductor crisis has – and will continue to be – the ultimate stress test of their business.O
16 IMAGING AND MACHINE VISION EUROPE VISION YEARBOOK 2022/23 @imveurope |
www.imveurope.com
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