By Mitchell Rona, Executive Vice President
In our industry, sourcing challenges persist despite the fact that pandemic-related restrictions and impacts on daily life have eased considerably. Recently, SIGMA OEM has seen a significant uptick in inquiries from people who currently are ‘going it alone’ in the global sourcing arena only to find massive roadblocks, shortages, astronomical prices, and headaches with logistics, inventory, currency, shipping, and other issues.
In addition, many companies that previously relied on domestic suppliers have experienced the same overall supply chain challenges. As a result, they have struggled to source material on time and at consistent, reliable prices.
Steel fabrications, in particular, have seen major shortages due to huge domestic demand, with supply chain disruptions and precipitous price increases. While no one is immune from inflation, tariffs, duties, ocean freight expenses, container costs, and more, SIGMA OEM has been successful in managing the supply chain and delivering for our customers. Granted, things are not where they were in January of 2020, but our in-country presence, boots-on-the-ground, and long-standing relationships that date back as much as 40 years, have helped us manage these challenges better than many others in the industry. We certainly offer a better solution than going it alone.
During these difficult times, SIGMA OEM can complement a direct sourcing strategy, offering a risk mitigation benefit to balance the overall exposure.
Through the pandemic, SIGMA OEM has provided global sourcing services for many different customers in various end markets, delivering completed products in a timely fashion. We are not perfect–nobody is immune today. However, our experience and scale bodes particularly well during these unprecedented times. In addition, we offer a dedicated JIT supply chain from our ten US logistics facilities. This means a value proposition for the customer, in terms of reliability, trust, and an end-to-end solution.
To learn how SIGMA OEM can help solve your sourcing challenges, please contact oemusa@sigmaco.com today!