Samtec’s sales levels are growing at an unprecedented rate. Current bookings levels are 85% greater than they were one year ago and over 80% of today’s bookings are requested to ship within 30 days of the order receipt or less. Bookings and shipment levels began to spike in September of last year and because Samtec is a privately held - debt free company we were able to pull the trigger on staffing additions much faster than most of our competition. Between the months of October and February we hired 475 additional production associates, are projected to employ 200 new associates in March and another 175 associates are slated to be added in April for a total of 850 additional production associates. If bookings levels continue to grow we are ready and in position to increase our hiring goal as needed.
As most of you know Samtec is a build to order manufacturer with the shortest lead times in the industry. For the most part we have maintained a very high On-Time Delivery rate during this spike in business and have only added 1 week to our standard lead times. We have even been able to offer a fair amount of expedite flexibility as well.
Over the past couple of weeks our OTD rates have slipped a slight amount and we have lost some our expedite flexibility. Despite the current business conditions we recognize that these Service Levels are not acceptable nor what you expect from Samtec. In order to regain our OTD and expedite position we will be adding 1 week to our current standard lead times. Several products will still maintain our next day deliveries but in general our lead times on most products will be 3 to 4 weeks as compared to most of our competition who are still quoting 6 to 8 week lead times but delivering in 14 to 16 weeks. Please keep this in mind if you are experiencing extended lead times with your current supplier and would like to improve your delivery by 3 months.
Best Regards,
Scott Lamb