Over the past few weeks your cooperative has had a difficult time maintaining adequate levels of inventory to satisfy your needs. For that we are truly sorry. There were several factors that contributed to these frequent outages and when all happened simultaneously it created our current situation. We began the traditional feeding season behind the curve as we encountered our much discussed feed mill software update. This software update was painful for us and for you, as we were unable to produce any feed for a week. Unfortunately, a week’s worth of production loss put us playing catch-up right from the start. As with all manufacturing, supply chain of ingredients are crucial to timely production. United Salt encountered major issues resulting in a complete shutdown of our supply of all salt products. We quickly created new relationships with other providers but these other companies were inundated with new customer requests. Unable to ramp up their production fast enough to satisfy demand, we were initially rationed salt. That resulted in us being out of high inclusion salt feeds particularly range mixes and minerals. Our supply chain woes were magnified by a shortage of rail cars and trucks that was driven by the needs of the Oil and Gas Industry which in turn created gaps in acquiring ingredients in a timely fashion. All of these issues prevented us from building inventory. The combination of low inventory with exceptional demand resulted in many outages. Rebuilding inventory during peak demand is very difficult. Production crews are working 24 hours a day, and we will work our way thru these issues. Improvements are in place with several projects underway which will help relieve some inventory stress in the future. We will continue to make strides forward to fulfill your needs. Thank you for your patience and business.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 20:28:44 +0000
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