Supply Chain Blues

-Excellent.  How long will it take to cure?

That’s me, responding to a photo that an installer texted me today of a newly-poured pad for a new home that I ordered in February.  The home was supposed to arrive from the factory the first week of November.  Now, it is due next week.

–8220 days

-You are shitting me.  I will be dead in 8220 days.

The home that is supposed to go on the pad is a new 16×80 four-bedroom single wide.  It was ordered by some very good tenants in my park in central New York.  When I heard that they were looking for a new home and had qualified for bank financing, I offered to order a home from the factory for them.  I would like to keep them in the park, and losing a lot is always a big economic hit.  They would save money by buying from me instead of from a greedy retailer.  I could pay for the home with cash reserves and get my money back when it was on the lot.  What could go wrong?

I asked the installer for cure time because I had just gotten a call from the salesman at the factory.  He had told me that, although I had paid for delivery, the factory was no longer offering delivery services.  The transporters who they used were based in Pennsylvania, and they were too busy delivering homes from the factories there.  The drivers didn’t see the use of travelling dead-head from their homes south of the border to the factory near Utica.  So the sales rep at the factory was going to give me the contact details of a transporter who I could make arrangements with to deliver my home when it was ready.  Did I have a pen ready?

“Uh – I paid you to deliver it for me.”

“Oh, this guy will beat our price.  I’ll send you a refund check.”

“Will I get it before I have to pay the new guy?”

“I hope so.  And you will probably save money on the transaction.”

“I doubt it.”

I asked the sales rep to email me the name of the transporter, instead of reading it to me over the phone.  Then, I told him that I might not be able to take delivery next week, because the pad will need time to cure.  He said, “Oh, you will have to discuss that with the transporter”, and I said, “I’m telling you, because the home will have to sit in your facility until it is taken away”.  There was a pause.  He said,

“No, it has to be gone by the end of the month.  That’s because month end is year end, and we need to clear out all inventory by then.”

“Well, I won’t be able to take delivery until the pad is cured.”

I thought, This is the guy who told me the home would be ready a month ago, and he is enforcing deadlines?  I said,

“Wait – didn’t you say the home would be ready last month?

“That’s correct.”

“And, if I ordered a new home now, when would I get it?”

“Mid to late 2024 is our best estimate.”

While we were talking, I googled “actuarial tables”.  According to the Social Security Administration, a man of my age in 2017 (the most recent year for which tables were available) had a .009047 chance of dying within a year.  A man one year older than me had a .009803 chance of dying within the same period and a man one year older than that, a .010591 chance of dying within a year.  If I understand the math correctly, that means that, if I were to order a new home from this sales rep today, there would be a 2.9541 percent chance of my dying before it arrived (In doing the arithmetic, I assumed that the pool of remaining years would remain constant, like a deck of cards that is shuffled after each hand.  I am curious whether, in fact, it decreases as the years go by, like a deck that is depleted as cards are discarded.  If so, my chances of dying before the home arrives are, in fact slightly higher than I calculated.  I am interested by probability, but not good at it). 

I snickered.

“Heh, that’s three years from now.  And I can’t go over by a week or two?”

“Sorry, but everything has to be out the door by end of year.”

That’s why I called the installer for cure time.  I wanted to know whether we would make the 12/31 deadline.  He meant to text back “18-20 days”, but slipped up because he was driving as he texted.  “Were you empty”? I asked the installer, when he called.  “No, I was hauling a single-wide going to Port Crane.”  “Please don’t text and drive”, I said.  “Particularly when you are pulling an oversized load.”

When I worked at the Big Four accounting firm, there was always a big rush to collect payment from clients before midnight June 30.  That’s because the fiscal year began on July 1, and invoices collected in the current year counted toward partners’ current year bonuses.  It had nothing to do with clients’ needs or the status of the project to be paid for.  When I became a client, I learned to ignore these calls.  The service provider’s accounting period is the service provider’s problem, not mine.  The best way to collect invoices before the end of the accounting period, I told them, was to finish the applicable project before the end of the accounting period.

Today is December 6.  Some people say that cement should cure for twenty-eight days before a home is put on it.  Using that time-frame, the earliest we could install the home would be January 3.  The guy who is working on this particular job says that he needs at least eighteen days.  That puts us at Christmas Eve.  I doubt any work will get done on that day, and I suspect none will happen any time after that until the Monday after New Years Day, which is the third.  I will make best efforts to accommodate the manufacturer’s request, but I suspect that their sense of order and their inventory accounting method will be disrupted by a day or so.  I know that they are Goliath and I am a flea on a wart on David’s back, but I really don’t see what either of us can do about it.