Dear customers, dear Eurocircuits’s friends, we love you all but at the moment you are choking us.
The coronavirus situation continues to affect us as it obviously affects many of you. Being an open online company this hits us hard in the way that today we have 3 times more production panels on the shop floor than we normally have.
Striving to stay true to our focus market and unique selling proposition of delivering PCB prototypes & small series, bare and assembled boards, quickly whilst maintaining our high quality standard for our products and delivery , forces us yet again to take actions to limit our order input.
For 5 weeks now we have been inundated with more and larger quantities of orders than we can process and we have stretched our capacity to the maximum by cancelling holidays and organising weekend shifts.
Last week we decided to extend the delivery terms for orders over 100dm2 to 20 working days, but today we have to admit that this did not have any effect on our daily order intake, the inflow is getting even stronger day by day with no let up in sight.
These are difficult times and we are in the midst of the storm, trying to help as many of our customers as possible but one cannot expect miracles from us. During the last week we have clearly explained the situation regarding our dependence on the Chinese supply. This situation has not been our choice nor our wish. Nevertheless we strive to help all in need, but let’s stay realistic, Europe cannot compensate with its less than 3% of the world volume of PCB manufacturing for any shortcomings of the 50% giant China.
We could dream that after the corona crisis is solved and forgotten, we would still see the same number of orders coming to us as we have today. This would certainly be a sound base for further investments in extra capacity. Europe wide we would see new PCB plants arising and young eager engineers finding a future in PCB production again. This would stimulate the development in new technologies to make PCB production cleaner, more reliable and more cost-effective. Equipment suppliers would again be motivated to invest in a European technical service. Material suppliers would again be interested in building production capacity in Europe. All of this would make us less dependent on Chinese supply as we would have our own strong European alternative to face any new crisis.
However this dream expansion would need up to 6 months to be achieved and would need some guarantees as well. Customers that are willing to think, act and commit midterm and are willing to talk with us on this matter are encouraged to make contact. A dream has to start somewhere.
But today, the situation forces us to limit our order inflow to ensure our standard service of prototypes & small series to our long term customers that rely on us for their business are maintained.
Following restrictions are in place now :
- Small PCB orders under 50dm2 are still available as before
- New PCB orders over 50 dm2 will be available from a 12WD delivery term only
- New PCB orders over 100 dm2 will be available from a 25 WD delivery term only
- New PCB orders over 200 dm2 are temporarily not available.
- Larger PCB orders with a value of over 1000 Euro are temporarily not available.
We will evaluate the situation day by day and will revert to normal delivery terms as soon as possible. Should these actions that we have taken today, cause a serious problem for any of you, long dear to us, please pick up the phone and make contact with your dedicated Eurocircuits customer service manager and we will try to find a solution where possible. If you are unsure who your Customer Service Manager is, please click this link.
And of course we sympathise with any person affected by the Corona disease and we are truly hoping that they will be able to conquer this as soon as possible and return to good health.
Your Eurocircuits Team
26-02-2020
FAQ
Recently, we have received several questions concerning if and how the coronavirus will affect our production and below are our answers/solutions.
Q: How will/does the coronavirus affect Eurocircuits material supply?
A: Eurocircuits is a European Prototype PCB and Assembly Manufacturer and as such we are loyal to our European suppliers, as has always been the case. In addition, for our production needs we have ample stock of our materials and chemicals to continue uninterrupted for quite some time.
Q: How will/does the coronavirus affect the production?
A: We only sell what we make and all production is done in Hungary and Germany, you, our customer should not experience any interruption of service.
Q: How will/does the coronavirus affect the Eurocircuits Business?
A: This is where we have seen the largest effects. With the current situation in China and the disrupted logistic flows, we have seen order demands rise from our normal 450-500 orders per day to over 650 orders per day, and an increase of over 40 % in average order surface
Q: How will Eurocircuits cope with this high demand of orders?
A: Our priority is to deliver high quality products and services to our customers with on time deliveries. To achieve this, we have put limitations on new orders to ensure the continuous flow of prototype PCB orders:
- Small PCB orders under 50dm2 are still available as before
- New PCB orders over 50 dm2 will be available from a 12 WD delivery term only
- New PCB orders over 100 dm2 will be available from a 25 WD delivery term only
- New PCB orders over 200 dm2 are temporarily not available anymore.
- Larger PCB orders with a value over 1000 euro are temporarily not available.
We will evaluate the situation day by day and will revert to normal delivery terms as soon as possible.
Loyal, long term customers of Eurocircuits that really get into problems because of these restrictions can contact us by chat or phone. Together we will try to work out a solution.
All contact details can be found here: Contact Information
