VTL5Cx Photocouplers and Possible Subs

[smallbearelec]

Hi--

I promised a number of people that I would investigate why the prices have gone through the roof. After some digging, I got to speak with a distributor sales manager for Excelitas, the company that bought the product line from Perkin-Elmer. He said that, until last year, they had not raised prices on the Vactrols since 2007. Their product managers reviewed the manufacturing costs for these parts, and they raised prices in one shot about a year ago.

I guess one piece of good news is that the increase is not, AFAICT, some commodity-related thing--a shortage of Cadmium, etc.; I have spoken with a contact at Silonex, and their prices have been stable. The quotes I have gotten from a possible source of Chinese clones are also reasonable.

I made it clear to the guy from Excelitas that I thought that he should talk with the bean-counters and find out whether maybe someone slipped a decimal point in coming up with their numbers. Meanwhile, one of my customers has some samples of Chinese clones from me, and he has promised to test them against the specs for the VTL5Cx. I will advise results ASAP.

Regards
SD

[R.G.]

He said that, until last year, they had not raised prices on the Vactrols since 2007. Their product managers reviewed the manufacturing costs for these parts, and they raised prices in one shot about a year ago.

I will say my piece and then shut up, feeling better after venting my spleen.

I find the MBA mind set curious. It makes it easy to do what the controls-theory guys call "getting stuck in a local minimum".

First of all, who says that they haven't raised prices in a few years as an explanation? What kind of explanation is that? Inflation has been darn near 0 for an astounding (to me!) few years. With a steady supply of lower priced competition coming on line, management of USA industry has done an amazing job of holding up the profit margin and dwindling sales until the company nearly - or completely! - died. And these guys were largely the bright lights in the B-schools.

The only reasonable thing to think that would happen in their customers' minds is ...

I have spoken with a contact at Silonex, and their prices have been stable. The quotes I have gotten from a possible source of Chinese clones are also reasonable.

... the customers will go to a competitor, and if that fails, go start dealing with an offshore source. Enabling competitors, and worse yet, incenting customers to go searching for new competitors to start up is at least self defeating, and possibly suicidal.

The results are predictable. This will be a common result:

I made it clear to the guy from Excelitas that I thought that he should talk with the bean-counters and find out whether maybe someone slipped a decimal point in coming up with their numbers. Meanwhile, one of my customers has some samples of Chinese clones from me, and he has promised to test them against the specs for the VTL5Cx. I will advise results ASAP.

This is what we used to call an IQ test for the guy from Excelitas. If he doesn't comprehend that getting a Chinese clone of this product line enabled by customer demand will at the very best mean they wasted the money to buy the product line, he's slower than he ought to be.

If he were have as bright a business school grad as he ought to be, he'd be scrambling to keep prices down til he could get his own low cost clones set up.

If he doesn't do this in a way to preserve his customer base with an old, old product line, he is choosing to go out of business.

There. I feel better. I'll sit down now.

[cloudscapes]

I use the Silonex ones. they're fine.
(to me)