It has certainly been a difficult couple of years for everybody. The pandemic has caused, and continues to cause, unprecedented disruption to both personal lives and businesses across the globe. These unusual circumstances have resulted in many changes to the way people live their lives as well as the way in which businesses function.

One of the consequences of this has been a worldwide shortage of electronic components. However, the Covid-19 pandemic isn’t the only factor. In fact, it is an unfortunate combination of circumstances that have all occurred over a short period of time, resulting in this unprecedented situation. The ongoing trade war between China and the United States, the Ukraine - Russia conflict, a number of severe weather incidents and fires at three major component manufacturing facilities have all contributed to the shortage.

In general, evolving technology resulting in an increased demand for a wide range of electronic components continues to put a strain on manufacturing and supply chains. As well as this, the increased prevalence of home working has led to a higher demand for semiconductor chips that are used in computers and laptops, which has also exacerbated the issue.

The scale of the issue is such that even the biggest companies in the industry are having to make concessions and account for the lower levels of available components, so it is a truly widespread issue that no company can avoid.

As of now there isn’t a definitive end in sight and some reports suggest that shortage may not ease until 2024 at the earliest.

At Cadlay Designs we are dealing with the situation proactively, always staying transparent with our clients in terms of lead times and working with them to mitigate the risk of component shortages affecting production. Where possible, longer forecast visibility is essential so components can be on order months in advance. We have also adapted our processes so that buying of critical components is done before the design is completed which gives us the flexibility to change components during design, where parts are not available.

We’ve hoping that the electronic component sourcing process sees significant improvement sooner rather than later but will remain proactive, vigilant and flexible in the meantime.