Bearing vendors are a nightmare sometimes

[geesamand]

Can anyone provide some insight on why bearing vendors (name the major brand - this has happened with all of them) have such wildly varying lead times and constantly moving delivery dates?

As an Engineer I have a responsibility to select bearings that are commercially available, so we reach out for pricing / availability information during the design phase. Lead times in weeks, sufficient quantity. Things go well through product launch and initial production. At re-order time 12 months later, our production personnel are left with double or triple the lead time, 5x the part cost, etc. Commercially, what is driving this? Have you any suggestions on other leading indicators that help predict sizes that will cause supply chain heartburn?

Thanks,

David

 

[Skogsgurra]

I have one tough experience that can explain why lead times increase beyond belief.

A newly designed commuter train has bearing problems (electric current in both motor bearings and wheel bearings). Running time is less than a year and there is an awful lot of those bearings.

The company that builds the train does not want to admit that the design causes the problem and that doesn't help. The trouble-shooting process is v-e-r-y s-l-o-w and in the meantime, the trains need to run and transport passengers. So, instead of changing bearings on some 1500 axles (two bearings on each) every fifth year or so, it suddenly is necessary to change five times more often.

That loads down the production line at the factory that produces these bearings. They cannot pump out more bearings without reducing the number of other bearing types produced on that production line.

Everyone hopes that the problem will be solved and the bearing manufacturer does not plan to build another production line.

In this particular case, there are barely enough bearings available to keep all the trains rolling. Any other bearings that used to be produced on that production line is now available only with a very long lead time and price is high because the commuter train operator is desperate and pays whatever price is asked.

This could be one explanation. I don't think that the situation I described is unique.

Gunnar Englund

http://www.gke.org

--------------------------------------
Half full - Half empty? I don't mind. It's what in it that counts.

 

[geesamand]

Yeah that was one scenario that I had envisioned.

I guess if I had a customer with very high volume and margins willing to buy out the capacity of a production line for months at a time, I too would be tempted to ignore the needs of all of my other customers.

Unfortunately my company only buys in quantity of any one size that we will permanently remain a "small" OEM bearing customer.

 

[electricpete]

I asked a similar question once for a very large angle contact bearing on bottom of a vertical motor. Over a year lead time and around $5k apiece.

The bearing factory has to "re-tool" to make one style of bearing. Then they do a "run" making however many area needed. Then they re-tool for the next style of bearing. The quantities made during a run and time between runs of a given style depend on thier calculations to maximize profit... which includes not keeping too much $ tied up in inventory, and not retooling too often (they're not making anything when they're retooling). In the end the large expensive bearings with limited demand will have long lead time. If you throw a ridiculous sum of money at them, or order a ridiculously high quantity, or some combination of these, they may change their schedule and retool for you to improve lead time, as I remember someone mentioned something like $100k for 10 bearings and 6 months lead time (vs > 1 year) in the case of bearings above, which was not something we were interested in.

=====================================
(2B)+(2B)' ?

 

[Fugeguy]

gunnar,

Grounding issues can be tough.

What types of bearings do you use (ball bearing spherical, etc.).

 

[Tmoose]

When I was working for a spindle company the bearing sAles EnGiNeEr said with a straight face all the bearings in the precision bearing catalog were standard, and should be considered during design.

I relied on this list to see what was REALLY likely to be available

http://www.bardenbearings.com/inventor.htm

I am not aware of the equivalent list for more mundane bearings, but I'm sure they exist. A good sales rep ought to be able to snag one. Might have to be plied with liquor first, but.....................

Dan T

 

[diskullman]

Perhaps this is why the importer Consolidated Bearing is considered a manufacturer. Their deliveries are accurate, and they keep a larger inventory. Ironic, but I worked for an FAG distributor, and I would often be told "no stock, no scheduled production" by FAG's customer service. I'd then call Consolidated, be told "3 in stock, balance scheduled 2 months out". When I asked what brand, it was usually FAG. FAG even had us buying bearings from Consolidated to sell back to FAG.

Russell Giuliano

 

[geesamand]

To get current stock levels I have a contact at most of the manufacturers who will give me a detailed status of stock, cost, and next production date. But that's today. The future is beyond volatile.

The problem I have is that we can place a PO for bearings with say 2 months of lead time. 6 weeks in we call to find out they pushed our lead time out 6 more months, and they'll answer it shamelessly and without apology.

It's a real shame that there are plenty of new bearing vendors entering the game from emerging markets, but their quality and authenticity cannot be assured in the way we can with the big brands.

David

 

[ischgl99]

Consolidated buys up stock and warehouses it so that they have something available when customers need it. They are a distributor just like Motion Industries, Kaman and Allied. The only difference is Consolidated stocks more bearings then the big three and you can usually find what you need from them. FAG is a manufacturer and wants it out of their warehouse as fast as possible since inventory costs money. They typically only make what has firm orders or will historically sell in a very short time. They hardly ever will stock a bearing on speculation like a distributor might.

Bearing manufacturing is usually done in batches since the production lines need to be set up for each size. If you call for delivery once that batch of production has already been sold, you need to wait until the next run, which can be many months away, and may also already be sold. If it is a common bearing, the wait might not be long, if it is a windpower sized bearing, you might wait 2 years. FAG now being part of Schaeffler Group typically only makes what customers are willing to purchase right away. Stock is kept to the bare minimum, so lead times will vary based on when you inquire. Back in 2008, leadtimes for some bearings were approaching 2-3 years.

As for delivery dates moving, your initial delivery date is when it is planned in the schedule for manufacture. That date can change if a large order for a good customer comes in and they need the machines to make those bearings. I frequently saw orders slip several times by months at a time, those customers were of course not happy campers. If you know what your future needs are, buy what you need and stock it yourself, neither the bearing manufacturers, nor most distributors are willing to hold onto inventory.

 

[caoimhin1]

"If you know what your future needs are, buy what you need and stock it yourself, neither the bearing manufacturers, nor most distributors are willing to hold onto inventory."

Good advice ischgl, would make everyone's life easier.
However, the problem is that in 2008, when the crash happened, suddenly EVERYONE had tonnes of stock that they couldn't shift. OEMs, distibutors, manufacturers were left with full warehouses and no customers. Only over the past year has everyone managed to burn off that stock and start producing again (hence the sudden increase and fluctuation of lead times). The problem no is that because everyone was badly burned by the recession, absolutely nobody is willing to take a risk and speculate on future needs, so nobody in the chain is holding stock anymore.

 

[geesamand]

" If you know what your future needs are, buy what you need and stock it yourself, neither the bearing manufacturers, nor most distributors are willing to hold onto inventory."

This isn't possible when the lead times double and triple.

Modern equipment builders would be foolish to stock more than a year's supply of a commericially available part, especially when the previous lead time for the bearing was 2 months. So this year we're 4 months from depleting stock when we order new bearings quoted as 3 months of lead time. Now the bearing vendor pushes lead time back 6 more month. I suppose that if there is a lesson to be learned, it's that bearing vendors place zero value in our business relationship and that we should assume they will screw us at every opportunity. Anything less pessimistic would be foolish. It should be an entertaining meeting the next time their sales guy attempts to visit and beg for our OEM business.

 

[H4Marine]

We sink or swim on our delivery times for ships bearings (plain composite) the company that often gets the order is the one that can deliver fastest.
Ship is dry docked and stops earning money so the pressure is on to deliver!

So in our business of bearings (plain bush/flat pad, oil/water/grease) we aim for 5 - 10 days production orders are scheduled in. What sometimes hits us is either raw material supplies or shipping issues.

 

[geesamand]

Well that's where we'd like to be. The trouble is that our existing designs specify many inch-sized bearings and some of our designs specify less common metric bearings. For decades, picking a bearing out of a catalog offered very little risk in cost or availability.

A few years ago we added a commercial review of bearing availability on new designs. This boiled down to quoting each bearing for cost/lead time and revealed a few adjustments. Unfortunately the recent bearings market has made some of the selections that passed this test still undesirable. It appears that some bearings which were readily available had volume driven by one particular customer and either they quit buying them or bought out the supply. In the future we will not only investigate bearing cost, but availability. My initial thoughts on availability are to assess how many different customers are buying them (more is less risky) and checking with multiple bearing vendors (more is less risky).

This all boils down to buying bearings that sell with high volume and are nearest to commodity items. Does anyone have any resources that assist with understanding which bearings are most popular and available? I'm particularly interested in metric taper roller, spherical roller, and deep groove ball bearings.

 

[diskullman]

I would suggest to pick from the bearings available in the Grainger catalog. They cater to a lot of electric motor rebuilders. Grainger does not handle oddballs, only the cream of the crop. If it's available in Grainger, you should be able to get it from any bearing distributor.

Russell Giuliano

 

[geesamand]

Thanks for that tip. Grainger has a larger size range than I would have expected. I've looked through McMaster-Carr before but their stock tends toward lighter series and smaller shaft sizes.

David