My good friends at AMP wanted me to pass along some info for them in regards to what has been going on recently with their annealer building and availability. As you know, New Zealand was locked down pretty tight by their overlords...er, Prime Minister(?) and for some time during the pLandemic they were not even allowed into their own facility. They would have to sneak in, bring parts home and build them there....or so I've heard....maybe. On top of all that, more recently as everyone is aware, global supply chain issues are very problematic and they recently lost their chip manufacturer. They are currently shopping new ones. So for the time being, they are making as many as they can, as fast as they can.
In mid February they got in a small order of chips, built 54 annealers and all sold out in 10 minutes. They are continuously asked to reserve some and are being offered more money than they sell for, but refuse to do this in fairness to all customers.
They had ~1,000 people log in to try and buy one, and froze/crashed the website. Their IT department is working to try and fix the site issues. They get tons of nasty emails and handle phone calls from irate people and try to placate them, which usually helps.
Then more recently they tried to make a wait-list system for customers, and it got destroyed too.
From Alex:
We had another IT shambles yesterday. We were right in the middle of the weekly flurry of 90 seconds of orders when they just stopped at 28 sales. We still had 26 to sell, but a draft program the IT people were working on to allow people to join a waiting list kicked in, and stopped all orders. It was supposed to me in a virtual spot that only we could access for testing. Still haven’t got any answers because the IT people haven’t answered texts or emails over the weekend. Tomorrow there will be more blood on the floor than you see at work in a week. It is very difficult placating irate customers when none of it is our fault. When I get a flood of complaining emails, I put a lot of time into answering the first one so I get the right tone, then copy and paste that to all the rest. This is the best I could do yesterday:
"Apologies for the mess-up. As mentioned in our previous “out of stock” message, our IT people are working on improving the webstore so that once stock sells out, customers are placed in a back-order list. That should not be live today, because it is only meant to be in “test” mode for us to try privately for now. Somehow the wires have got crossed, and halfway through today’s sale the new message kicked in. We put 54 annealers into stock today, and the first 28 sold out as usual in about 60 seconds, but then everything stopped. We still have 26 units in stock, but the new program is preventing customers from accessing them. They are just getting placed in a queue. It is Saturday morning here, and we are trying to get hold of our IT people. It is extremely frustrating for everyone. It may end up taking until Monday New Zealand time to get it fixed. Please bear with us."
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Well there you have it. They're working as best they can to churn these things out. Sucks for everyone, but they aren't the only ones affected by the global supply chain shortages etc. They can only make as many as parts supplies allow for now. And we all know how bad IT departments are!
New Zealand has finally eased up a bit and they are permitted to travel out of country again this year. They'll be here in Ohio visiting and then at the GAP Grind and the PRE in October. Stop by and scream at Alex and Matt in person if you must. Annealers should start becoming more available soon.
In mid February they got in a small order of chips, built 54 annealers and all sold out in 10 minutes. They are continuously asked to reserve some and are being offered more money than they sell for, but refuse to do this in fairness to all customers.
They had ~1,000 people log in to try and buy one, and froze/crashed the website. Their IT department is working to try and fix the site issues. They get tons of nasty emails and handle phone calls from irate people and try to placate them, which usually helps.
Then more recently they tried to make a wait-list system for customers, and it got destroyed too.
From Alex:
We had another IT shambles yesterday. We were right in the middle of the weekly flurry of 90 seconds of orders when they just stopped at 28 sales. We still had 26 to sell, but a draft program the IT people were working on to allow people to join a waiting list kicked in, and stopped all orders. It was supposed to me in a virtual spot that only we could access for testing. Still haven’t got any answers because the IT people haven’t answered texts or emails over the weekend. Tomorrow there will be more blood on the floor than you see at work in a week. It is very difficult placating irate customers when none of it is our fault. When I get a flood of complaining emails, I put a lot of time into answering the first one so I get the right tone, then copy and paste that to all the rest. This is the best I could do yesterday:
"Apologies for the mess-up. As mentioned in our previous “out of stock” message, our IT people are working on improving the webstore so that once stock sells out, customers are placed in a back-order list. That should not be live today, because it is only meant to be in “test” mode for us to try privately for now. Somehow the wires have got crossed, and halfway through today’s sale the new message kicked in. We put 54 annealers into stock today, and the first 28 sold out as usual in about 60 seconds, but then everything stopped. We still have 26 units in stock, but the new program is preventing customers from accessing them. They are just getting placed in a queue. It is Saturday morning here, and we are trying to get hold of our IT people. It is extremely frustrating for everyone. It may end up taking until Monday New Zealand time to get it fixed. Please bear with us."
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Well there you have it. They're working as best they can to churn these things out. Sucks for everyone, but they aren't the only ones affected by the global supply chain shortages etc. They can only make as many as parts supplies allow for now. And we all know how bad IT departments are!
New Zealand has finally eased up a bit and they are permitted to travel out of country again this year. They'll be here in Ohio visiting and then at the GAP Grind and the PRE in October. Stop by and scream at Alex and Matt in person if you must. Annealers should start becoming more available soon.
