In last month’s (March) edition you may have read an article by Matt Brandrup with RESCO discussing supply chain issues. The article described how our main material supplier is managing and stocking their inventory to supply 37 Iowa cooperatives.
Here at Access Energy Cooperative we are managing and stocking inventory at unprecedented levels to ensure our members’ needs are met. As we forecast our future major projects and normal daily needs, we are using past history trying to project inventory needs up to three years.
As we look at projects, material lead times can be up to 52 weeks for delivery. Even the basic bolt we use in power line construction is 4-6 weeks, each power line pole has numerous bolts of different sizes in use. We have increased our inventory by about 20%. While we increase our inventory one important piece of information to know is that our material does not have a shelf life. Therefore, we can store materials indefinitely as long as we have space. We are even looking at renting storage containers as we start receiving materials for our large work plan projects that ensure the safe, reliable and efficient power you expect.
All departments within the cooperative are working diligently to project and make sure we have the needed materials to serve our membership. We continually analyze all facets of the cooperative making sure to meet required financial ratios by our lenders. Equity management is a large part of the cooperative. Equity management is important because it represents the value of our member’s stake in the cooperative.
Moving forward we are studying and balancing every facet of the organization to make sure we meet required financial ratios
We cannot guarantee what the future holds but rest assured we are controlling what is within our grasp.