It’s almost a cliché at this point: to ring up a company and ask for a lead time, and to hear back, ‘well, since Covid…’. This is no different for the automotive, agricultural, construction and industrial parts industries, with lead times being seriously disrupted worldwide.

No Entrance

Yes, the pandemic has had a terrible impact on lead times, in pretty much every industry, worldwide, even down to food deliveries to supermarkets! Part of this is due to lockdowns being implemented in major shipping hubs around the world, forcing delivery crew to change route and go the long way around, which may add days or even weeks to a shipping lead time. 

Self-Isolation

A shortage of workers who have to stay home isolating then creates a lack of workers to handle incoming shipping containers, which leads to a build up of shipments inside warehouses, and a reduction in space for newer containers, forcing manufacturers to hold their latest products on site, until a space in a distribution warehouse opens up. Isolation doesn’t only affect movement of containers along shipping route, either – workers across all industries who must isolate also means less workers to actually make the parts, in the first place. Factories with a reliance on automated manufacturing may have a slight advantage here but there are many parts that are simply best being built and completed manually, and it is these parts that there may be more likely to be a shortage of, in the first place.

Panic Buying

In the meantime, this delay in product deliveries has created a shortage of automotive, agricultural, construction and industrial parts globally, which in turns leads to higher demand as original equipment manufacturers as well as spare parts distributers and other companies panic and begin to stockpile everything they can, to try and buy themselves security for future disruptions.

Conclusion – Get Your Mechanical Original Equipment And Spare Parts From BTL-UK, No Matter What Industry You Work In

In summary, all of this created a substantial mess for anyone relying on mechanical parts in the UK and worldwide. As we come out of the pandemic, we are slowly starting to see a catch up and return to normal, but the ripple effect will probably continue for a good while yet.

The best thing you can do to secure your requirements is by working with a leading UK manufacturer and international distributor of bearings, power transmission and linkage products, a company that has both UK and Asia production facilities, a company such BTL-UK. We have three sites in the UK, so our lead times are very low, we maintain a good stock level so we hardly ever have any waiting times, and when you call us up, there is no language barrier or time zone difference to deal with! Give us a ring today and a BTL-UK expert will be very happy to advise you.

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