What else can go wrong this year? And we can’t blame it all on the pandemic…

Since Brexit it seems we’ve got a severe shortage of HGV drivers which is causing huge problems getting food and other goods delivered in a timely manner.

And back in March one of the world’s biggest micro-chip (semiconductor) factory caught fire, with production being halted for months.

This happened at a time when the world’s vehicle brands were already suffering from a reduced supply of micro-chips, as they cancelled forward orders when the pandemic hit.

But new car sales bounced back quicker and stronger than any of them had planned, and with not enough micro-chips to go around, supply of new vehicles has been affected.

The fire at the micro-chip factory made matters worse, with many new vehicles now not being delivered for up to 6 months from order placement.

It’s not just vehicles being affected either, pretty much anything which needs a micro-chip has seen long delivery delays, including some of the printers, scanners, and office phones we provide.

Even Velux solar blinds have been affected. They’re a fantastic solution for hard-to-reach Velux windows and operate without the need for mains power. But we’ve been trying to get hold of one for months and are now being told it’s likely to be next year, due to the micro-chip shortage.

Then boom. Up in smoke goes a Konica Minolta toner factory in Japan. Which provides most of the toner cartridges to fuel Konica digital printers and multifunction devices all over the world, including ours across Lancashire & Greater Manchester.

Luckily (or is it good management?). We keep a decent stock of the toner cartridges we need to keep our customers multi-function machines working, so it’s business as usual for them.

…and the Tatsuno toner factory will be back open soon, so our customers will see zero disruption.