Michael Harlow, Vice President / Sales, Kodiak Assembly Solutions

How many cases of whiplash did our customers suffer in 2021? At least two, but the year isn't over yet!

Eletronics manufacturers experienced a wild ride this year. Business roared back early in the year from the Q1 pandemic lows, only to be dampened by parts and labor shortages in the 2nd half of the year.

Ultimately, CheckSum's success in winning new customers greatly buffered the industry's slowdown in capacity expansions caused by parts shortages. While our sales efforts were extremely successful, our operations were challenged with many of the same issues our customers faced.

CheckSum was fortunate to have moved into a new, larger building in late 2020. However, finding employees to help us keep up with demand has required a major effort. Similarly, the amount of time required to manage our own electronics production, deal with extended component lead times, and identify and secure alternative parts as needed was probably 5-10x previous years. We understand and sympathize with what our customers are experiencing!

Looking forward, I am optimistic. Our customers tell us they have tremendous demand, so as they succeed in adjusting to the dual shortages of electrical components and manufacturing labor, CheckSum expects 2022 to be a banner year --and to prove it, we've already purchased the components.