Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
components that would be required to build an amount that was certain to be at least 30
times greater than what was originally planned.
The focus was first put on parts that were being sourced from any international suppli-
er; use of such suppliers, as noted earlier, almost always comes with a longer lead time. It
was also important to begin communicating this new demand to SparkFun's domestic sup-
pliers, which normally have no problem meeting requests for several hundred pieces of
any component but will usually need additional time to meet requests for several thousand
units, especially for the more expensive, active components like the ATmega32U4 micro-
controller that was being used in the design of the MaKey MaKey boards and kits. For-
tunately, the communication with SparkFun's suppliers began early enough that all of the
quantities needed were able to be sourced and delivered soon enough so that SparkFun
could complete the full production run in time to ship out the products to the Kickstarter
backers by the August deadline.
Unfortunately, supply chains are never perfect and are likely to fail from time to time.
Several years ago, SparkFun stumbled into an interesting experience when it was learned
that the manufacturer of the ATmega328, Atmel, had announced a coming supply short-
age of that popular microcontroller. The shortage was expected to affect SparkFun's abil-
ity to build many popular designs in the coming months and was forecast to last for sever-
al months. After doing some quick calculations, it became clear how much revenue would
likely be foregone if there were no way to build the ATmega328-equipped circuit boards
during that time. The quick math exercise revealed that great effort needed to be put into
finding a source of the microcontroller that could supplant the normal supplier until Atmel
was able to refuel its supply network. Thus the search began for a new supplier of the ubi-
quitous ATmega328, one that didn't yet exist on the SparkFun supply chain radar.
A seller on Alibaba was found that claimed it had 3000 of this specific microcontroller
available to ship out and could have them delivered to the SparkFun dock door within 1
week. It was determined that buying from this unknown source would be a pretty large
gamble but worth that risk relative to the amount of lost revenue that was anticipated if no
source for this part could be found. Not surprisingly, SparkFun ended up with 3000 excel-
lent-
looking
ATmega328 microcontrollers but 0 units that were capable of doing anything
at all when soldered onto a circuit board and powered up. Perhaps even less surprising, the
supplier proved impossible to track down and communicate with after the funds to pur-
chase the parts had been wired to its account. You can read about the full adventure on
SparkFun's website:
www.sparkfun.com/news/350
.
Expect to hit plenty of roadblocks along the way to setting up your own supply chain,
but know that the end result can be worth the effort required to overcome those roadb-
locks, in terms of overall cost savings in your products.
