36-Whittling Away November 1, 2024

Covid was quite a shock to the supply chain. Many manufacturers are still recovering including us. We had the added issue of significantly increased orders along with the supply chain issues but we have steadily been making progress. We had gone almost two years of over one year lead times and now we look like it is down to about 4 months.We hope that some time in the first quarter of 2025, we will be back to “in stock to one month” lead times. We have been able to do this because, since the beginning of Covid, we have just about doubled our production capacity. I am reminded of the launch of the first Mustang in 1964. They were hoping to sell 100,000 cars in the first year and ended up selling 560,000. Quite a feat, until you look at the quality of those early Mustangs. Back then, Detroit had a habit of producing shoddy cars that sold well while producing higher quality on cars that did not sell well. This was especially true of those early Mustangs (full disclosure: we own a 1966 Mustang). The build quality was awful, mostly because they had to ramp up so quickly. Interesting fact, the Mustang now averages about 100,000 units a year. I have been very mindful of this as we have been ramping up production and if you do it right, increased speed almost always means improved quality. I know that sounds counterintuitive but you have to use more controlled process to go faster. Not only are we making more of the Peerless 7000s and Ideal 6000s than ever before, we are making them better than ever before.