Mainebiz

V O L . X X V I I N O. X X I V N OV E M B E R 1 , 2 0 2 1 18 L O G I S T I C S / T R A N S P O R TAT I O N C onsumers know the feeling well. They go to the store for their favorite product and find nothing but an empty shelf. The retailer shakes his or her head and tells you it's backordered. Business owners face these challenges on a daily basis. The on-demand supply chain that characterizes modern business was shattered by pandemic shutdowns and subsequent shortages. There are tales of container ships stocked with goods held up in port after a member of the crew contracted COVID. There are banks adjusting lines of credit to businesses to accommodate more costly shipping. There are retailers already warning customers that holiday goods may be in short supply. We've all heard about the shortages of toilet paper, automobile chips and construction materials. To find out how Maine businesses are adapting to shortages in supplies, we reached out to a dozen businesses, ranging from a boatyard to a chocolate maker to a retail car-servicing chain. We asked if there were specific products they have not been able to get and how they've responded. Nearly all of the business leaders that responded said there were specific prod- ucts that were in short supply: Fiberglass resin, antifreeze, engine parts, marine paint, air conditioning parts, oil filters, brake rotors, insulation, cabinets, appli- ances, coffee makers, coffee beans, cookies, coconut, peanuts (as well as peanut oil and peanut butter), freeze-dried raspberries, packaging materials, cup covers. As JB Turner, general manager of Front Street Shipyard, told Mainebiz, "it may be easier to ask what CAN we get readily." But nearly all the business leaders we talked to, including Turner, said they'd found some workaround — a different formula, a larger quantity, a new supplier or a new source. "We do have contingency plans in place, and many of our suppliers have offered alternate product options to the ones we typically use. The key has been leveraging our planning process to give our suppliers as much information and lead time as possible so they can plan our needs with their production capabili- ties. We also have long standing relationships with many of our suppliers, so that has absolutely helped us with communication," says Tony DeNoia, senior supply chain and warehouse operations manager at Allagash Brewing in Portland. Here's a sampling of responses from businesses. JB Turner GM , FRONT S TR EET S H I PYAR D, BELFAS T We find the most bizarre things in the past six months to be out of. We never know it is coming. It started with resin and fiberglass — resin especially. When the freeze happened in Texas and there was a fire in the only other large resin producer in China — that pretty much killed the ability to get resin. Now it is just random. We can't get parts for engines, so we cannot get new engines. Someone decided to stop making non- toxic antifreeze, so we had to buy every scrap we could find. Last week we could not get Racor filters and we had to buy oil in 55-gallon drums because there were no 1-gallon containers available. Air conditioning parts are scarce. Some paints are very hard to get — last spring certain colors were not avail- able. Now it seems that most of our consumables (acetone, lacquer thinner, poly plastic, etc.) are getting hard to get in a timely fashion. ere is no doubt that it is getting worse as opposed to better, or even improving. Josh Henry PR ES I DENT, GO LAB, BELFAS T It is a complete crap shoot. I would not say that there is anything that we cannot find, but some items have exceptionally long lead times. Other items are readily available and there seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. e problem for us has been that prices are volatile, which is a very challenging thing for a company seek- ing financing. We recently had to fix equipment contracts for 60 days — it was near impossible and exceedingly expensive. How did we resolve the situation? Money...more money. ere is a run on all building products, but insulation in particular. We had been importing large volumes of European insulating wood fiber composites for use in demonstration projects, but the backlog with our suppliers is longer than 6 months. Mary Allen Lindemann C O-OWNER , C OFFEE BY DES I GN Everything from Chemex coffee mak- ers not being produced fast enough to coffee beans stuck in port. Have I mentioned the bags we put the cof- fee in? No guarantees when they can be made. Every day we are problem solvers, number crunchers, detectives finding what had been a core item on hand somewhere, anywhere. Maine leaders find new sources to overcome supply chain shortages F O C U S There is no doubt that it is getting worse as opposed to better, or even improving. — JB Turner Front Street Shipyard P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY P H O T O / T I M G R E E N WAY F I L E P H O T O / T E D A X E L RO D JB Turner Josh Henry Mary Allen Lindemann Fiberglass resin antifreeze engine parts marine paint air conditioning parts oil filters brake rotors insulation cabinets appliances coffee makers coffee beans cookies coconut peanuts (as well as peanut oil and peanut butter) freeze-dried raspberries packaging materials cup covers JUST A SAMPLING OF WHAT'S BEEN IN SHORT SUPPLY: B y P e t e r V a n A l l e n BROKEN LINKS

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