Motorola circuit board component shortage

Supply-chain quality coupling — the limiting reagent in a multi-component assembly.

I ran into it at Motorola — they have all these different components that go on a circuit board, and someone orders the right number of components. Well, how much extra stock do you need in case one of those components is bad? If you order just the right amount and one is bad, then you can't finish all your circuit boards. This was the biggest problem in making circuit boards that Motorola was finding — the inventory to build it — even though you had all kinds of people trying to make sure they had all the stock ordered with the right lead times. It's a very complex process. This is part of what they now call supply chain management.