Overview

We are currently experiencing major delays to the supply of desktop and laptop PCs, with delivery two to three times longer than normal. This is an issue affecting all PC manufacturers and is the result of the worst flooding in Thailand for 50 years disrupting the supply chain for some PC components, in particular hard drives.

• IT Services are working with HP and taking steps to manage the effects of these delays.
• Departments should plan with extended delivery times in mind for desktop and laptop purchases.

Background

In October, significant parts of central Thailand suffered from the worst post-monsoon season flooding for 50 years. Thailand is the primary manufacturing hub in South East Asia and exports to industries around the world - the floods have caused the shutdown of over 1,000 factories and several major industrial estates, many of which are still under several meters of water.

Around 45% of the worlds hard drives for computers are manufactured in Thailand as well as many components used in hard drives assembled elsewhere. This is already causing major supply issues for all PC manufacturers, with an estimated 30% shortfall in the number of drives available. Many parts for mobile computers are also manufactured in Thailand and are also affected, although stockpiles of these are large enough that the effects are not expected to be seen until early 2012.

Estimates of how long these shortages will last vary between three and twelve months.

University exposure

The University has a framework agreement with HP to supply our desktop and laptop computers.

HP made strategic purchases in October to try and ensure sufficient supply of hard drives to meet customer demand. However, they have warned us of, and we are experiencing, lead times on equipment increasing from the standard (~12 days) to in excess of 4-5 weeks as a direct result of these shortages. HP warranty repairs are not yet affected.

Stone, our former supplier, have alerted us to potential delays with carrying out warranty repairs on Stone PCs on campus.

What IT Services are doing

We have proactively ordered a stock of the standard PC model (20) and the standard laptop model (5). These are intended to help ease issues for departments where they have a new starter who needs a PC and will be otherwise unable to work.

Departments who need to order a PC urgently should do so in the normal way and then escalate the order to IT Services (through our Service Desk) to ask for help with earlier fulfilment of the order.

As this is a global crisis affecting all suppliers we will not be altering our approach to non-standard equipment purchase. We are able to provide loan equipment from our standard pool to cover for non-standard PCs with extended delivery times; and escalate the non-standard order through our escalation channels in HP.

The effects of these shortages will also be taken into account in the planning for the Windows 7 rollout project taking place next year.

What departments need to do

Given these extended lead times, departments need to plan ahead where possible. In particular, where new starters are expected or other requirements are already known, you should make sure that purchases are made as soon as possible to reduce the effect of the delays.

For further advice/guidance, please contact our Service Desk on extension 2253 or via ithelp@le.ac.uk.