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PSA Regarding Bayed / Shipping

@ClassaxV ....I understand and agree. The whole chip thing to me is stupid. OK, you're not building cars, "cut the number of chips we need". Did you think you were NEVER going to build cars (or whatever) again? Did you think Covid was going to end the world?

And don't get me started on "just in time" inventory. We're still doing that? It didn't work when I was in college and retail in the early eighties. Yes, for the one or two you sell on occasion. But when you only have one or two widgets, and there's a big sale coming up next month, you have to special order more widgets, then your inventory is all messed up. Maybe you get your widgets in time, maybe not. I can't tell you how many times we were out of stock or didn't have the reorder point right.

Remember when it used to be sex, drugs and rock n roll? Now it's money, money and money.
 
@Finally-a-V I TOTALLY agree, JIT was meant for getting parts to the actual Assembly LINE itself, not the whole factory, which used to have warehouses. It doesn't work for items with high mix products, and custom vehicles are exactly that. High-value, high-variability inventory. Semi-custom cars would fit that definition. Operating a company via its stock price instead of its actual sustainability has lead many a great company to collapse.
 
@Finally-a-V I TOTALLY agree, JIT was meant for getting parts to the actual Assembly LINE itself, not the whole factory, which used to have warehouses. It doesn't work for items with high mix products, and custom vehicles are exactly that. High-value, high-variability inventory. Semi-custom cars would fit that definition. Operating a company via its stock price instead of its actual sustainability has lead many a great company to collapse.
It’s meant to put the onus on the supplier vs the manufacturer. Perhaps, at the peril of the manufacturer.
 
Scrapping carriers during a lull is a profit-taking move not an operational move. Anyone who has run even a lemonade stand, knows that the setup/restarts are the most intensive periods. IF the whole WORLD was shutting down its chain, it makes no sense to scrap the current capacity for a supply of a currently broken chain, when the only true known was that demand would be spiked once operations resumed. So many companies cut employees and couldn't recover for the same reasons.

I saw the Times article on Ford's cost but it's double-speak for us in SCM. Cost are contractually set in most cases yearly and on many components multi years with fixed escalation well below inflation rates. The variable cost would be freight. They don't buy components one quarter at a time, they plan a vehicle for production this year, they designed and had supply chain in place a year or even two ago. They're getting hosed on labor and EV batteries which are up 8% and a combined 347% respectively (factories were shut down, and freight carriers won't transport these HAZMATs because A they are heavy and B take up a lot of space. More revenue carrying more lightweight stuff) Their revenue is down but they aren't adjusting earning forecast which means they are actually saying profitability is taking a hit so they wll need to cut FC (people) to maintain the same stock prices. That's not a supply chain issue, that's a board of directors' decision. Reduce your forecast, which will reduce demand which will drop the prices, and ease supply requests, you can't ship the cars anyway. Yes, your stock will drop but your company will survive. Nope,got to get those dividend payments out.

RIGHT, By now they should have the FIFO system in full gear, they've had to years to get it set up.

They can't get Carbon from the supplier they inked a deal to supply the carbon for the next 4 years worth of production. But carbon can be had. I advise all the time exclusive deals are bad for business, supplier spec's parts are bad for business. You need an A thru C tier supply base for everything. Supplier A gets 80% of the spend, B get 15% and C a little mom and pop, gets 5%. That way you have multiple streams of supply. You watch the quality control but you're almost never completely constrained. Otherwise, if supplier A is all you have then you can't build cars until you strike a deal with B who still has to ramp up to produce the parts. This is why they cant do edge red paint calipers now, only one supplier and it was the supplier's paint spec, not GM's. So now because you had only one Carbon supplier now you're having to ramp up new parts that are not on new cars. Supplier B and C are your peak demand suppliers. They can give you better pricing when volume requires, even though you pay more to ensure you always have parts during non peak periods. So it's NOT that there is a carbon shortage or even a Carbon supply chain issue, its a margin dilution issue, GM's low-cost supplier is having issues and they had no back up because they went with a single low-cost option. Now they'd have to either raise prices mid-year and buy from other suppliers with a delay as they ramp up losing margin the whole way, or hold margin and not provide it on the cars, just keep it as an unavailable option to keep the customers.

Stop calling it a supply chain issue, its a business decision. Yes they can't get as many parts as quickly as they want, but that is a constant condition. Boat sinks with all the chips is a supply chain issue, Promising more cars than there are chips or chip makers is a business decision.

Interesting to read and I totally agree. I'm a CPA and I try to remain ignorant (blissfully) of why my vehicles don't show up or don't show up as fast as possible, but I'm also a CFO who is cognizant of the real business decisions behind the outward facing outcomes many companies exhibit nowadays.

There are a ton of moving parts, a ton of bureaucracy at the big automakers, and a ton of suppliers also making their own business decisions, i.e., "Oops, I have "supply chain" issues too and I can't deliver the carbon or chips, etc." when the reality is they do have some supply, but they don't want to sell to OEM at cheap a** pricing they negotiated and would rather give their limited supply to higher bidders.

I'm just fortunate I got one of the 250 reservation CT5BW cars and I didn't do a crazy spec (i.e. no CF parts besides the brakes, six speed, mid-grade seats, etc.) and I got car #26. I also got one of the first round of the Escalade V beasts, but it didn't have the Super Cruise option I spec'd which was mildly annoying but the rest of the SUV made it totally worth getting.

Just yesterday though, I walked away from a reserved '22 Sierra Denali Ultimate that just arrived at the dealer because it didn't have a standard feature that was included with the Ultimate package...you guessed it...Super Cruise. IMHO, it's not an Ultimate without that key feature, so I walked on it. Pretty frustrating because it was going to be my new daily driver with that sweet 3.0L Duramax diesel and Super Cruise. It was going to make an awesome highway cruiser. Oh well, the dealer said they'd have zero problem moving it to some person who doesn't care as much about SC.
 
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Does anyone else hear the theme to the Benny Hill Show playing when they read this thread?
It's called Yakety Sax, and yes, yes I do...
 
Scrapping carriers during a lull is a profit-taking move not an operational move. Anyone who has run even a lemonade stand, knows that the setup/restarts are the most intensive periods. IF the whole WORLD was shutting down its chain, it makes no sense to scrap the current capacity for a supply of a currently broken chain, when the only true known was that demand would be spiked once operations resumed. So many companies cut employees and couldn't recover for the same reasons.

I saw the Times article on Ford's cost but it's double-speak for us in SCM. Cost are contractually set in most cases yearly and on many components multi years with fixed escalation well below inflation rates. The variable cost would be freight. They don't buy components one quarter at a time, they plan a vehicle for production this year, they designed and had supply chain in place a year or even two ago. They're getting hosed on labor and EV batteries which are up 8% and a combined 347% respectively (factories were shut down, and freight carriers won't transport these HAZMATs because A they are heavy and B take up a lot of space. More revenue carrying more lightweight stuff) Their revenue is down but they aren't adjusting earning forecast which means they are actually saying profitability is taking a hit so they wll need to cut FC (people) to maintain the same stock prices. That's not a supply chain issue, that's a board of directors' decision. Reduce your forecast, which will reduce demand which will drop the prices, and ease supply requests, you can't ship the cars anyway. Yes, your stock will drop but your company will survive. Nope,got to get those dividend payments out.

RIGHT, By now they should have the FIFO system in full gear, they've had to years to get it set up.

They can't get Carbon from the supplier they inked a deal to supply the carbon for the next 4 years worth of production. But carbon can be had. I advise all the time exclusive deals are bad for business, supplier spec's parts are bad for business. You need an A thru C tier supply base for everything. Supplier A gets 80% of the spend, B get 15% and C a little mom and pop, gets 5%. That way you have multiple streams of supply. You watch the quality control but you're almost never completely constrained. Otherwise, if supplier A is all you have then you can't build cars until you strike a deal with B who still has to ramp up to produce the parts. This is why they cant do edge red paint calipers now, only one supplier and it was the supplier's paint spec, not GM's. So now because you had only one Carbon supplier now you're having to ramp up new parts that are not on new cars. Supplier B and C are your peak demand suppliers. They can give you better pricing when volume requires, even though you pay more to ensure you always have parts during non peak periods. So it's NOT that there is a carbon shortage or even a Carbon supply chain issue, its a margin dilution issue, GM's low-cost supplier is having issues and they had no back up because they went with a single low-cost option. Now they'd have to either raise prices mid-year and buy from other suppliers with a delay as they ramp up losing margin the whole way, or hold margin and not provide it on the cars, just keep it as an unavailable option to keep the customers.

Stop calling it a supply chain issue, its a business decision. Yes they can't get as many parts as quickly as they want, but that is a constant condition. Boat sinks with all the chips is a supply chain issue, Promising more cars than there are chips or chip makers is a business decision.
Very good explanation for what’s going on everywhere. I remember what the supply couldn’t keep up with demand did for Harley back in the mid 90’s, surprised it took a pandemic for other corporations to cash in. I know of a local dealer who had 2 salesmen break 6 figures for the first time in the first year of the pandemic. The second year there were 6. So the dealership and the salesmen are making more doing less. This begs the question will it ever get better?
 
Is the link in the first post still live? I got a bizarre result upon entering my VIN.
 
Is the link in the first post still live? I got a bizarre result upon entering my VIN.
It is not. Jack Cooper shut down public access to their tracking.

If you think your car is actually in transit, you can email Accelerated Services (search the forum for contact info) and give them your VIN, they can see things that your dealer and Rob's tracker cannot once your car is actually in transit.
 
My optimism is fading. Foolishly I thought I was going to be different. My car was going to get built and be shipped to me in a reasonable time. How could it not? Just one fricken option picked , that being the super exotic parking package with manual transmission. Built on 9-8-22. Went 4200-4D00-4B00 and now the Vin View says it's 4B00 with the dreaded MP. WTH!! What part isn't on the car now that was on the car for the last month? How can this program be so completely boned up and the C-8 program be so sorted out. They make and ship 180 C-8s a day and Cadillac makes 28 CT5V-Blackwings a week. Don't tell me your buddy bought a C-8 and they have problems also. My personal experience with both products leads me to say there is no comparison between the two buyer experiences. Preaching to the choir. Rant over. Will enjoy the rodeo.
 
This is the way.
Excited The Child GIF by Disney+
 
My optimism is fading. Foolishly I thought I was going to be different. My car was going to get built and be shipped to me in a reasonable time. How could it not? Just one fricken option picked , that being the super exotic parking package with manual transmission. Built on 9-8-22. Went 4200-4D00-4B00 and now the Vin View says it's 4B00 with the dreaded MP. WTH!! What part isn't on the car now that was on the car for the last month? How can this program be so completely boned up and the C-8 program be so sorted out. They make and ship 180 C-8s a day and Cadillac makes 28 CT5V-Blackwings a week. Don't tell me your buddy bought a C-8 and they have problems also. My personal experience with both products leads me to say there is no comparison between the two buyer experiences. Preaching to the choir. Rant over. Will enjoy the rodeo.
The C8 is an all in strategy, GM makes certain all parts are available because the car is important to GM. They should have an all in strategy for Blackwings and Escalade-V's as well in my opinion but they don't. As usual Cadillac is supposed to be the top of GM's brands but its never treated as such unfortunately.
 
Well for comparison, gm built around 26,000 c8's in '22. And they built just shy of 1,800 ct5 bw's. So I would hope they'd have a lot more parts lined up for the vettes and could handle parts shortages a little better. In the first year, 2020, I think they wanted to build 40k c8s but only managed around 20k. So 50% of planned. I thought Cadillac had said they planned 1500 or so 5bws for '22. But with 1800 built, they did 120% of planned. Not too bad really, it all comes down to the fact that the blackwing were always considered/planned to have "extremely limited availability ".
 
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The C8 is an all in strategy, GM makes certain all parts are available because the car is important to GM. They should have an all in strategy for Blackwings and Escalade-V's as well in my opinion but they don't. As usual Cadillac is supposed to be the top of GM's brands but its never treated as such unfortunately.
Sedans are niche, they're gonna end up with loads of A10 4BWs sitting at dealers even with low volume. 5BWs can obviously take more demand/builds, but still low.

C8 as that 2nd/3rd weekend car is way easier a sell than a BW as your 1st/2nd.
 
My 5 BW was built sept 13th but still waiting shipment here in connecticut. They say it could take months ! WTF ! The nobody knows nothing responses are getting old . Dealer is useless.
What dealer did you use?
 
My 5 BW was built sept 13th but still waiting shipment here in connecticut. They say it could take months ! WTF ! The nobody knows nothing responses are getting old . Dealer is useless.
Well the dealer isn't entirely useless, because they are correct that it could take months.

Welcome to the rodeo.
Bruce Willis Party GIF by IFC
 
Blasius, Waterbury, Went to google maps and typed in Lansing GM plant, then satellite view , and there is 5 parking lots next to factory loaded with cars, many appear to be CT 4 ,5 and Camaro. Probable Blackwing also.
Yeah my dealer just says "apparently Cadillac is having issues shipping cars" then goes dark for weeks when I ask for more information. A 2 second Google search can tell me that. Found these on a Camaro site of a Lansing lot from September:
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