Posted by Vintage Power Wagons on Tuesday, July 27, 2004 at 11:03AM :
In Reply to: Owe VPW another backhanded apology... posted by Nickathome on Monday, July 26, 2004 at 5:31PM :
I just read the posts this morning concerning our handling of back orders. We appreciated everyone's input. Teusday mornings we have a staff meeting and this exact subject, (the steering column insulator) came up this morning in our meeting, before I ever read the posts. The steering column insulator has been on back order since the first of the year. For years we had NOS ones in stock, but like many parts, once they're gone you have to figure out how to make it. VPW paid a company a $750 mold charge for not only the M-37/1/2 ton insulator, but another $750 for the PW /3/4WC insulator too, both have been out of stock for a number of months. Sometime in late winter we received samples, which we approved. Everytime we have something back-ordered it's an inconvienence for all concerned. In our case, it costs not only in having to deal with a simple order twice, but paying an additional shipping cost as well. So, now we approved samples in February and expect our shipment to arrive shortly. This last week, we received 6 more samples of each to approve! Frustrating for us to say the least, especially when we have someone patiently waiting and have given them an estimated date of delivery! Somebody obviously wasn't listening and we now are ST
ILL out of stock on the insulator as when these latest samples came in, we filled as many of the older back orders we could, including Nick's. We can certainly understand his frustration and can only magnify it from our side based on how slow our suppliers can be in production. In the past 20 years I have found the reproduction rubber industry to be one of the most unreliable industries in terms of date of delivery.
We have at least 6 suppliers that we buy different rubber products from and nearly all share many of the same problems. Slow lead time and inconsistency in delivery. Take a look at your local auto dealership's inventory compared to what the inventory would have been 20 years ago. NOBODY wants to stock anything any more, if they do it's as little as possible.
If you can imagine how many different rubber parts are on one vehicle and then multiply that by 1,000's of different types of vehicles, you can get a feel for what the logistics that these rubber companies deal with.
Not much else I can say. We do our best and with our shipping system, you will get the product shipped to you the day it comes in.
We have a larger inventory than anyone in the industry and keeping track of every single part, is difficult to say the least.
We're far from perfect and will continue to make mistakes, just like everyone else.
Whether you want to give us another shot Nick is certainly up to you. I suppose if another supplier had invested in the tooling for the part you would have purchased it from someone else. Please if any of you have back-orders, we ask for and thank you for your patience.
Dave Butler
Vintage Power Wagons Inc.
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