Over the last two years, there’s been a lot of focus on long lead times for items like VFDs, transformers, PLCs, and other instruments and electrical gear, and most people in construction and facilities management are well aware of these issues. Many other electrical and controls parts and materials were largely unaffected by supply chain shortages and have remained readily available. However, this does not mean that you can wait until the last minute to order unaffected parts and materials for your facility’s annual shutdown between Christmas and New Year’s when many facilities have maintenance crews performing various required tasks.
These items should be ordered now.
This year, many supply houses are not stocking a lot of the materials that are typically available next-day or sooner, and it’s very possible that standard items like enclosures, relays, connectors, PVC piping, twist locks, interposing relays, and terminals, to name a few, may take a week or more to arrive. Therefore, it’s important to ensure you’ve ordered all needed parts and materials well before your shutdown. Sometimes, as the saying goes, if you take care of the small things, the big things will take care of themselves.
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