From PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU Thu Nov 14 22:11:39 2002 Received: from cherry.ease.lsoft.com [209.119.0.109] by dpmail10.doteasy.com with ESMTP (SMTPD32-7.13) id A01B175F00CA; Thu, 14 Nov 2002 22:11:39 -0800 Received: from PEAR.EASE.LSOFT.COM (209.119.0.19) by cherry.ease.lsoft.com (LSMTP for Digital Unix v1.1b) with SMTP id <2.007DAF2B@cherry.ease.lsoft.com>; Fri, 15 Nov 2002 0:57:39 -0500 Received: from MITVMA.MIT.EDU by MITVMA.MIT.EDU (LISTSERV-TCP/IP release 1.8d) with spool id 8645 for PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU; Fri, 15 Nov 2002 00:57:17 -0500 Received: from MITVMA (NJE origin SMTP@MITVMA) by MITVMA.MIT.EDU (LMail V1.2d/1.8d) with BSMTP id 2302; Fri, 15 Nov 2002 00:17:12 -0500 Received: from smtp-server2.tampabay.rr.com [65.32.1.39] by mitvma.mit.edu (IBM VM SMTP Level 320) via TCP with ESMTP ; Fri, 15 Nov 2002 00:17:06 EST X-Comment: mitvma.mit.edu: Mail was sent by smtp-server2.tampabay.rr.com Received: from wagner (154.204.27.24.cfl.rr.com [24.27.204.154]) by smtp-server2.tampabay.rr.com (8.12.2/8.12.2) with SMTP id gAF5H3fC020449 for ; Fri, 15 Nov 2002 00:17:03 -0500 (EST) References: <04ab01c28928$ecfa02a0$9acc1b18@cfl.rr.com> <3DCF1997.991B069A@UALBERTA.ca> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2600.0000 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2600.0000 Message-ID: <008e01c28c65$e35550c0$9acc1b18@cfl.rr.com> Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2002 00:14:33 -0500 Reply-To: pic microcontroller discussion list Sender: pic microcontroller discussion list From: Wagner Lipnharski Organization: UST Research Inc. Subject: Re: [OT] Digikey, an ISO-9002 company. To: PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU X-RCPT-TO: Status: R X-UIDL: 277600591 X-Evolution-Source: pop://mailinglist%40farcite.net@mail.farcite.net/ X-Evolution: 00000729-0000 Robert Rolf wrote: > Wagner, > > I can understand your being mad with Digikey, but isn't it really YOUR > FAULT for not allowing for 'screw ups' in your supply chain?? > > Why would you order parts that are apparently _critical_ to your > product delivery date (Nov 8?) only 4 days before they're absolutely > needed? What if Digikey had been out of stock? Then where would you > have been? > > Yes, Digikey screwed up by sending you wrong parts, and by sending > them by ground, but YOU screwed up by not giving yourself any > headroom or a backup plan. As you can imagine, 100 parts is not for a long term planned production. For those we stock weeks before - but beware of bad components - Some companies only accept bad parts return in 30 days or less.... We already had bad experience with 7805 units produced by TI (Mexico) - they regulate anything but 5V - some gives me 4.6V, others 4.8, others 4.3V, when we found out it was 60+ days, a bunch of dead weight - "You had 30 days to return, we are very sorry - we can't do nothing". So, if you buy with 6 weeks in advance of the project, take a weekend and test every resistor, capacitor, etc. Would you? Guess not. These 50 prototypes were requested Monday morning, customer was paying a good money to have it done in 5 days (wow), but a heavy late-delivery fine was signed. Boards were designed in 20 hours (overtime and all), produced in a very costly rush 24h, all parts involved requested Monday from 3 different suppliers, everything in triplicate just to ensure availability on Wednesday, except that little heck of capacitor, only Digikey had it. As Digikey never failed us before, we requested 2nd day delivery since we had enough time to correct any mistake 3 times if necessary using next day air, even with Saturday delivery. Murphy's law never shinned so bright, just that bugger was not delivered. Our backup plan worked. We identified Digikey failure Wednesday and requested a correction. It could happens more two failures if they would screw up twice if sending next day delivery. What we didn't count, was that Digikey would mess up twice, and screwing up exactly in the time link - promising a next day delivery and shipping ground service - that was not expected. Of course, production was busy assembling the boards in a rush, trusting Digikey was to deliver. Saturday morning. Customer accepted to have a different capacitor brand/model on board - with restrictions and extensive testing needed (to approve the new cap). Tried several local components store, Orlando is horrible for electronic components stores. Without any success for that little small capacitor - no tantalum allowed in the prototypes. That little bug makes part of a time delay system. Couldn't be anything worse. Radio Shack??? you mean ToysShack? The only electronic components I can find at Radio Shack actually are few HCMOS parts as 74HC00, 74HC74 and some 2n2222 transistors, some ridiculous plastic bags of mixed caps and resistors, a bunch of wire (what in the heck they have so much wire and cable?) and lots of antenna hardware - poles, bolts - again, who in the heck still messing around with so much antennas? Batteries? oh, yeah! thousands of them. Toys? oh, yeah! Telephone sets? oh, yeah! all colors. Kits about solar-cell-motor? oh yeah! we need very much those available Saturday morning. Jumbo RED LED? Oh yeah! we need those every single day... Last 10 times I entered Radio Shack found nothing I was looking for - the clerk is already thinking I am against him. - DB15 connector - any kind? No. DB25 Female right Angle pcb soldering? No. IRF530 equivalent Power FET? No. 74HC14, come on... No!, A good narrow tip (0.8mm) 30W soldering iron (good means > $30 ok?) No! RJ45 modular connector? No! Next time I need an electronic toy I know where I can find it: ToysRus! Back to Digikey on Monday, few thou le$$ in the pocket - called Digikey customer service, found the mess - wow . My first question was; "How do you usually ship the correct part when you do a mistake like this?" - answer: "Depends on the rush of the customer". So, suppose, I am a customer that just by some divine inspiration choose 2nd day delivery at the purchase order. Then you send a wrong part. I inform the failure. What you do? Rush like hell to fix the problem and send Next Day Early Morning to minimize customer impact? or just drop the package into a truck since the best thing customers enjoy is keep waiting for the parts during a whole week after the part was found wrong? paid 2nd day and receive 10 days later... She asked me: "Did you request the correct part to be sent next day?" - I almost answered I was to request it to be sent by a 5 yrs old boy carrier wearing tick glasses and driving a bicycle with training wheels from River Falls MN to Florida - come on, what you think it was accorded about shipping on Wednesday? The attendant said it was to be shipped RED and delivered next day - I not even needed to ask - it was natural to understand Red Label shipping was the only logical thing to do. They ship another box Red Label - received the correct parts exactly 7 days (Tuesday) after I reported the mess. The SEP-DEC/2002 Digi-Key catalog front page shows in 3/4" tall yellow letters; DELIVERY BREAKTHROUGH! wow, yes, of course, they do it, now they will start to do some effort to make sure the CORRECT PARTS are in the box! That's ok, we are focusing our purchases now on Mouser. -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.