Paint Shortage?

[AlastairM]

I have an E350 Cdi Saloon on order, with a build date of 7th June. I had picked Tenorite Grey as the colour, but I've now been notified that this colour won't be possible due to a shortage of paint because of the situation in Japan.

Anyone else had this problem?

 

[turbopower]

I read on an Audi forum about a member who has ordered the new RS3 is Suzuka Grey and his dealership had told him that if he wanted that colour he would have wait longer for it due to the problems in Japan.

 

[npuk]

Yes and doesnt only affect grey affects other colours too, it is a shortage of a pigment used in the paint. Been reported on various car / auto news sites. Search google for 'japan paint shortage'.

 

[AlastairM]

Yes and doesnt only affect grey affects other colours too, it is a shortage of a pigment used in the paint. Been reported on various car / auto news sites. Search google for 'japan paint shortage'.

Thanks for that - clearly quite a widespread issue.

 

[flango]

The problem is with the pigment called Xirallic and only produced by Merck in Japan, no other factory in the world produces this pigment although there are alternatives which MB, BMW and Porsche do use on certain colours.

 

[npuk]

Hyundai finds solution for pigment shortage | Reuters

Wait and see if other manufacturers like Mercedes do the same.

 

[flango]

Hyundai finds solution for pigment shortage | Reuters

Wait and see if other manufacturers like Mercedes do the same.

When flip paint and high shine metallics came in everyone used mica which is a mineral waste from the Kaolin mining Industry and cheap as chips, Then merck invented Xirallic which is used in much less quantities and works out a lot more cost effective, there are also other alternative pigments to Xirallic and MB are not a big buyer of this pigment so it must be specific colours only.

 

[artyman]

Hmm.......... paint shortage, wonder if this will affect me

 

[grober]

Ah -- the "Just in Time" or the Toyota Production System- don't ya just love it. Just-in-time (business) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

With the frequent shortages of vital components curtailing delivery on many models [ this was happening pre tsunami with many models/manufacturers so nothing new] maybe it should renamed the

The "Just in time or maybe in a couple of months" system.

 

[Sonny Burnett]

wierd problem?? having the same issue with finding some wierd japanese style valve on my Carlssons Rims...

 

[The Boss]

well here is another one..

new slk roof in metal is in short supply, and rumour has it, the launch cars can only have the glass roof!! same for sports bumpers..

dont ask why i know this! lol

 

[st13phil]

maybe it should renamed the

The "Just in time or maybe in a couple of months" system.

JIT works extremely well when forward demand is reasonably forecastable and there are no shocks in the supplychain but it (often) has little or no resilience when something goes nastily wrong - like an earthquake that takes out huge swathes of a country's infrastructure

However, don't knock it too much because it's one the major reasons that manufacturers have been able to drive down the cost of many, many things over the years.

 

[trapperjohn]

JIT works extremely well when forward demand is reasonably forecastable and there are no shocks in the supplychain but it (often) has little or no resilience when something goes nastily wrong - like an earthquake that takes out huge swathes of a country's infrastructure

However, don't knock it too much because it's one the major reasons that manufacturers have been able to drive down the cost of many, many things over the years.

I'm also a supporter of JIT. I worked the system for many years it does make it much easier to streamline the systems you work. But can lead to the old backside going halfacrown/sixpence if one of your suppliers has a nightmare.

 

[grober]

JIT works extremely well when forward demand is reasonably forecastable and there are no shocks in the supplychain but it (often) has little or no resilience when something goes nastily wrong - like an earthquake that takes out huge swathes of a country's infrastructure

However, don't knock it too much because it's one the major reasons that manufacturers have been able to drive down the cost of many, many things over the years.

There's no denying the benefits of a fully implemented JIT system but as with everything the devil is in the detail. JIT is also haunted by the spectre of "reductionist thinking" beloved of accountants the world over. I have highlighted a few telling phrases from that informative WIKIPEDIA article.

Just-in-time (JIT) a production strategy that strives to improve an business' return on investment by reducing in-process inventory and associated carrying costs.

In recent years manufacturers have continued to try to hone forecasting methods (such as applying a trailing 13 week average as a better predictor for JIT planning, however some research demonstrates that basing JIT on the presumption of stability is inherently flawed.

Inventory is seen as incurring costs, or waste, instead of adding and storing value, contrary to traditional accounting.



JIT reduces inventory in a firm. However, a firm may simply be outsourcing their input inventory to suppliers, even if those suppliers don't use Just in time.investigated this effect and found that suppliers in Japan charged JIT customers, on average, a 5% price premium.

JIT implicitly assumes a level of input price stability that obviates the need to buy parts in advance of price rises. Where input prices are expected to rise, storing inventory may be desirable.

Karmarker highlights the importance of relatively stable demand, which helps ensure efficient capital utilization rates. Karmarker argues that without significantly stable demand, JIT becomes untenable in high capital cost production.


Also, the factory began building many vehicles to order, eliminating the risk they would not be sold. This improved the company's return on equity.


Problems
[edit] Within a JIT system

Just-in-time operation leaves suppliers and downstream consumers open to supply shocks and large supply or demand changes. For internal reasons, Ohno saw this as a feature rather than a bug. He used an analogy of lowering the water level in a river to expose the rocks to explain how removing inventory showed where production flow was interrupted. Once barriers were exposed, they could be removed. Since one of the main barriers was rework, lowering inventory forced each shop to improve its own quality or cause a holdup downstream. A key tool to manage this weakness is production levelling to remove these variations. Just-in-time is a means to improving performance of the system, not an end.

Very low stock levels means shipments of the same part can come in several times per day. This means Toyota is especially susceptible to flow interruption. For that reason, Toyota uses two suppliers for most assemblies. As noted in Liker (2003), there was an exception to this rule that put the entire company at risk because of the 1997 Aisin fire. However, since Toyota also makes a point of maintaining high quality relations with its entire supplier network, several other suppliers immediately took up production of the Aisin-built parts by using existing capability and documentation. Thus, a strong, long-term relationship with a few suppliers is better than short-term, price-based relationships with many competing suppliers. Toyota uses this long-term relationship to send Toyota staff to help suppliers improve their processes. These interventions have been going on for twenty years and have created a more reliable supply chain, improved margins for Toyota and suppliers, and lowered prices for customers. Toyota encourages their suppliers to use JIT with their own suppliers.


My take on the situation is that JIT undoubtely improves the returns on investment for large car manufacturing companies. It saves considerable sums of money in the car manufacturing process but may simply pass on these costs to suppliers who charge more. There is also the question of just what proportion of these reduced costs are passed on to the customer in the form of reduced prices of cars or spare parts and what proportion goes to shareholder as returns on invested capital?

The down side for the customer is increased waiting time for certain models or parts , stretching to many months in some cases, because the production system is being "throttled " in the name of the JIT system. In other words the JIT system works to optimise the production process not satisfy customer demand. In the end for manufacturers that cannot achieve the correct balance between production costs and satisfying customer demand the result may be the loss of customers to another marque which actually has cars for sale.

A some examples

The recent debacle with Mercedes blue efficiency injectors

Not enough 5 speed automatic gearboxes in certain models.

Halt to certain models due to lack of certain electronic modules.

My take on JIT is that it works extremely well for the manufacturers but that the customer is expected to simply accept as inevitable any difficulties in supply the system may produce.

People reading this thread on their computer are benefiting from a digital electronics technique known as "buffering" Data buffer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Chances are their computer wouldn't work without it. Maybe the return of a little "buffering" in the car manufacturing process might not be a bad thing either.

 

[st13phil]

Many valid points there Graeme, and I don't take issue with them.

One of the feaures of techniques such as JIT is that they are viewed by some as the objective rather than as a vehicle for improvement. It sounds like we may have both bumped into some of the more evangelical practitioners in our respective careers.

The hijacking of these "bean moving" techniques by "bean counters" is also a serious problem. Invariably the latter group have scant undestanding of what the techniques actually mean, but see £ or $ signs in their head every time they hear them mentioned. They then blindly pursue single metrics such as inventory turns - because some ignorant analyst somewhere has that as a prime measure of business efficiency -while failing to understand the effect of it on service and resilience to shock. The pursuit of single metrics that are raised in importance far above their real relevance is extremely damaging and a good example of this is to see how the sometimes spurious use of Value Added per Employee comparatives in certain industries have driven bad production decisions.