New Post: Improved Delivery Time for Librem 5 USA: May 2022 Update

Hardware Librem 5
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So then back to the Librem 5 USA. When Purism created a second supply chain and a second queue for a product that is different only in supply chain and a different queue at Purism, they created an ethical quandary for themselves.

So let’s compare the situation to someone who finds themselves in a situation where they are suddenly unable to pay all of their monthly bills. How would most people handle such a situation? Obviously, you pay the rent, the power bill, and buy food as a first priority. If after that you can’t pay your credit card payments, well… there is no immediate penalty for not paying unsecured debt. You put those bills off however long it takes until you have more money in the budget to start paying those older unsecured debts again also. In the meantime, those bills where you got past benefits but you no longer need to pay on them now to survive, don’t get paid or get paid much less for now.

How might this relate to Purism? The price of a Librem 5 USA is about double that of a non-USA version. New Librem 5 USA orders bring in both more revenue now and also a higher revenue stream now. At this point, profits aren’t even relevant for the moment. You barrow from one revenue source to pay whatever has to be paid next, to avert disaster. The worst case scenario would be if all revenue completely stopped because then, you couldn’t even barrow from Peter to pay Paul.

Since Purism has not been transparent about anything related to amount of any orders in their current queue (USA or non-USA), past number of orders filled, or anything financial, ever, we have reason to be very concerned right now.

The chip shortage is global. It does not affect only China, where the Librem 5 non-USA is made. The United States is not a haven where there is no chip shortage now. Any larger supply of chips available in the United States now is artificial, and is only an artifact of more ability for American markets to pay any price to get what they demand. The global geography of the chip market is otherwise irrelevant. Sourcing the chips in the USA is not easy either, except that Americans might be willing to pay significantly higher prices to beat-out the competition. Ultimately, the chips from any given manufacturer are all made in the same fabs now as they were in 2018, regardless of whether or not there is a chip shortage or which market those chips are sold in to. The global silicon chip supply chains are all the same global silicon chip supply chains everywhere, until Purism receives a shipment of chips and then parses them internally, in to separate Purism-internal product queues, regardless of where on the planet the chips were shipped from. Except now, the global supply of available chips with respect to demand, is much lower than it was in 2018. So as a company, when you buy from this global chip market all it will sell to you, where do you allocate your limited supply of chips to go? That ethical quandary and the survival as a company says, “cater to new revenues first”. There is a product made to fill this niche that was conceived of for this purpose prior to the Pandemic, when Purism likely faced financial challenges, before there was any chip shortages. That product is called the Librem 5 USA.

How is that for keeping this thread on topic for the Librem 5 USA Kyle? The ball is in your court now. Facts and figures (not vagueness and hype) please.

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Hard to demand that when your entire complaint is conjecture.

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Hard to not demand that when my 2019 Librem 5 order has been put in the backseat, behind the newly hyped Librem 5 USA product and priority delivery to those customers.

Hard to not demand that when Purism doesn’t stick to promised shipping dates, nor do they disclose anything about product shipments and numbers of orders as they operate this way.

When Purism disappoints and doesn’t offer any substantive information about their questional business practices, all that is left is conjecture. So let’s wait to see if Kyle tells me I’ve got it all wrong. If not, or if no response by him, it must be true.

Let’s remember that Purism is a business, not a cult. Put on your thinking cap before attempting to act as an apologist for them. My questions are valid. At this point, even the conjecture is absolutely reasonable. And by the way, my knowledge of the chip market is not conjecture. Neither is the apologist claim here that the Librem 5 USA is a different product because it has different supply chains. The supply chain differences for the electronic components start when Purism parses the chips after buying them from THE (one and only) current dog-eat-dog global supply chain.

The ethical way is to raise the price for new customers and ship the Librem 5 in sequential chronological order where no one cuts in line.

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Purism doesn’t promise shipping dates. This announcement is an estimate for when they will be shipping from stock. So an estimate, not a promised shipping date.

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They never meet their estimated dates… three years later. Why should anyone purchase a Librem 5 USA now, because Kyle claims that Purism is almost caught up? We’ve heard that before, many times. No one is in a position to audit Purism’s claims of being close to completing any future act that they imply is coming soon. Purism is attempting to generate new Librem 5 USA revenues as a result of Kyle’s article here. But Purism is not really being accountable to anyone by making vague implications that no one can hold them to. They only promote the hype and an apparent random few people actually get product fulfillment. No one in their right mind would purchase a non-USA Librem 5 now. You’ll be amongst the unwashed masses who remain forever behind those in line who purchased the USA version so that Purism can prime the pump with only a suggestion (not a commitment) that they might be close to delivering to a few more of those people, not to even mention fulfilling your new ordee.

I just don’t agree with the Ponzi scheme here, any time Purism tries to prime the pump with articles that make vague claims that are never substantiated by any more than a few random people who show up on this forum, claiming to have received their phone. Whether it is true or not, Purism is acting like a company that can only make good on a few past commitments, if some new people will send them more money now to make it happen.

So I ask Kyle for some real numbers. If he doesn’t provide them, be very afraid because I am correct. How many phones are “close” Kyle, when it comes to Librem 5 USA shipping parity? The word “close” is subjective and absolutely non-commited. Can you even tell us what “close” means? (probably going to be no answer to that question). “Some time in June” is not anything that we can hold you to.

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Oh, wow, is it the weekend again already…?
:face_with_symbols_over_mouth:
🤷
:face_with_symbols_over_mouth:
🤷
:face_with_symbols_over_mouth:
🤷
:face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

:laughing:

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I understand that some customers are highly upset. I also don’t understand the Purism interpretation of “in stock”. For me you either can ship the product on the next business day or it is not really in stock.
But still I am really greatful for the work that Purism does and that they have the USA version of Librem 5 and I am very happy that they plan to start holding inventory in stock and get rid of these ridiculous delivery delays.

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My eyes glaze over a lot with this stuff, but can I ask how many common components exist between the USA and non-USA models? I mean EXACT, as in place of manufacture?

I would only have a problem if my non-USA L5 was sacrificing components stopping it getting to me so the more expensive USA could get out the door. Otherwise the existence of the USA model has no bearing on the time that my L5 gets to me.

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I agree with this statement, but we don’t know if that’s the case. Hence, conjecture.

Like the use of the term “apologist.”

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Gotcha. For some reason I thought this was known.

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Well, let me qualify by saying I don’t recall having ever received that information. I’m hardly an authority though.

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In many cases the supply chains for components for L5 and L5USA are different, by design. We have tried as much as possible for L5USA to source from US companies and ideally with components that were themselves made in the USA. Of course this isn’t always possible for each component, but we make an effort. It has meant we had to take time to build up a separate supply chain for these components for L5USA.

Another factor I think many folks haven’t considered when it comes to the supply chain crisis and Just In Time production is that in the past, if a particular supplier has a problem or there are other delays, you could often just go elsewhere for a particular component and still hit your timelines. These days it’s much more difficult to recover from a hiccup in the supply chain. Sometimes none of the alternative sources have supply either, because everyone bought up what they could (and in some cases are reselling it for a 2x-10x markup on the spot market).

Remember that run on toilet paper/sanitizing wipes/hand cleaner? Before that happened, if your main store ran out of those things you could just go to another store and get it. When those items had a supply chain crisis, all your local stores were out, as well as online sources as everyone bought up what they could. It took many months (I think a year for sanitizing wipes), but now those things are back in stock in reasonable supplies so you can just drop into a local store and buy them. Imagine that situation but for random electronics components, and extended out over 2 years, and you have an idea of what it’s been like. It’s starting to get better though.

As I mentioned in a different reply another factor at play here is order volume. The mass-produced L5 requires higher quantities of components to start up a manufacturing run. The CPU shortage meant that CPUs we needed in those quantities had long lead times. They are now starting to trickle in, in larger quantities which is good, and if things go according to schedule we should be able to catch up to all L5 orders by the end of the year.

The L5USA is a small batch product. It has a much smaller queue, and we can start up manufacturing runs for that with lower quantities of components. In many cases we placed orders for components for both products through their separate supply chains at similar times, and they are arriving when they arrive. We have also sometimes been able to source parts in smaller quantities on the spot market as they come up (usually at a much higher price) which has helped us make more L5USA (and L5 too as we have found some CPUs on the spot market for L5 through its supply chain as well). These L5USA quantities would be a drop in the bucket if they were to be diverted to L5 instead of L5USA where they were intended (not to mention the logistics of shipping them to those facilities) and often still wouldn’t be enough to start up a production run. Mass production is the solution to fulfilling all the L5 orders.

We don’t provide numbers or discuss our finances as a general policy, which you know. So you can make any conjecture you’d like and say it’s true if we don’t provide numbers, but we won’t provide numbers regardless.

It’s true “close” is subjective. If an estimate is vague it’s because we don’t have enough information to make it more specific. I feel confident enough to lower the lead time for new orders to 60 days, and feel that’s conservative, but because there are still unknowns I can’t be much more specific than that. It really bothers us when we make an estimate that turns out to be inaccurate later on. We are trying very hard not to do that. This is also why we haven’t given most L5 customers an updated shipping estimate yet. After all of the problems with estimates in the past we really do want new estimates we give to be accurate. As we feel we can give accurate estimates to folks we will update them though.

We wanted to provide an update to L5USA customers in this case as there is progress and everyone has told us they want us to provide more updates, not fewer ones, even if we don’t have all the information. It is unreasonable to expect us to have an exact date where we will hit shipping parity because we can’t predict the future. It’s always a factor of new orders coming in the future (unknown, but can make rough estimates based on past trends), past orders we need to ship (known), the speed we can ship through them (relatively known at this point), and in the case enough new orders have come in that we need to make even more phones to hit shipping parity, the shipping times for components we need for those manufacturing runs and the time to make those phones (known relatively well at this point as we have refined the L5USA production process, but could change w/ shipping delays or other unforeseen factors).

At this point we have a pretty good handle on this, which is why we shortened the lead time to 60 days. We think we’ll have sufficient quantities of L5USA at that point not just to handle existing orders and get us to shipping parity, but also handle a reasonably-sized influx of new orders with plenty of head room so that we can maintain stock from that point on and ship orders within 10 business days.

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Here is what I don’t understand, and maybe you could elucidate it for me @Kyle_Rankin. For close to a year (if not longer), the projected shipping time on the website for the Librem 5 USA has been consistently listed as 60 days. Yet with few exceptions, that hasn’t been the case. And if I’m understanding this post correctly, the hope is that all L5 USA will be shipped in the next six weeks or so, and THEN, there will be enough components for held stock to fulfill new orders in about 10 business days.

My confusion isn’t about why there have been delays in fulfillment. Much of that is understandable, given the current climate. What isn’t understandable is why there have been zero updates on the public website about the status or even existence of delays, nor changes to that 60 day availability listing. Meaning that if someone ordered a device in August of 2021 and expected to have it in October, they will actually be happy to have it in June. Even someone who ordered in January is still facing a 3x longer delay (best case scenario), than what has been listed on the sales page.

It would be helpful if you could explain why projected ship dates were never changed on the product ordering dates and what you will be doing moving forward to show that estimated fulfillment dates are actually realistic.

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Thanks for asking, lead times are tricky. I’ll try to explain why.

For what it’s worth, we just shortened it to 60 days from 120 days, where it has been for quite some time. Throughout the fall we hit that issue exactly as you describe: a customer placed an order with some long lead time (between 90 or 120 days in the fall, I don’t have at hand the exact times we changed things), then we hit one of a series of internal delays that delayed their order past the lead time we predicted. Yet we didn’t change the lead time on the site. Why?

The lead time in the shop is an estimate on when we believe an order placed today will ship. For orders with a backlog, it’s an attempt to predict that ever-elusive shipping parity date. We review those numbers periodically and ask the question: “Would an order placed today ship within that time?” If based on all the information we have, we believe it would, the lead time stays the same. If we think it would ship significantly sooner, we shorten it, and if we have hit a delay that makes us think it should be longer, we extend it.

What happened with L5USA during the fall is not a single delay, but a series of different delays spread out over a number of months (component shipping delays among other things). So a particular delay would hit that would affect existing L5USA orders, let’s say it would delay them by a few weeks. At that point we’d look at the information we had on the nature of the delay, when it would be resolved, etc. and ask “Would an L5USA order placed today ship in 90 days? 120 days?” whatever the lead time was. Usually the delay wasn’t significant enough we felt it would affect new order lead time so we kept the lead time. At one point we did extend it to 120 days because we felt that was more accurate.

Fast forward a few weeks and then some new delay we didn’t anticipate would surface that would affect past orders. Again we’d review the delay, our info on when it would be resolved, and the current lead time and decide whether it was still accurate. For the most part we felt it was so we didn’t change it. I completely understand why L5USA customers were frustrated, we were frustrated too.

Fast forward to this week. We reviewed all the information we have, in particular in light of the fact that we had contacted all orders that required shipping updates (in case their address changed since they placed the order some time ago). The next batch of orders we would ship out after this batch would just ship out, they were recent enough that we didn’t need to ask for updated shipping from the customer. Based on that, combined with our L5USA stock, shipping throughput, number of orders, L5USA production schedule for the next month, etc. we felt confident enough to shorten the lead time from 120 days to 60. That means we feel confident that an order placed today would ship by July 16. Many internal signs are pointing to the actual lead time being shorter, but again, we are trying to pad things and be conservative, because there always seem to be new unforeseen shipping delays or other issues.

An “X days from today” style of lead time naturally shifts ahead each day. Could we pick an actual date instead (say Q3 2022 or July 2022)? We could and sometimes we have in the past, yet we found when we did that, especially when the date was more specific, we had to keep on top of it and update it much more often so it wasn’t inaccurate, as each month went by. We found it was more likely to be inaccurate, so we shifted to a sliding window.

Of course this approach is imperfect too, and it can lead to the kind of situation we hit this past fall. We don’t want to do that any more if we can help it, as it’s frustrating for us and it’s frustrating for you. This is why we are trying to move each product away from Just In Time fulfillment to a model where we hold a lot of stock. This is how we are ultimately going to resolve this issue and make things stabler and more predictable.

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Thanks for that response, appreciate it.

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May 11, 2022:

Any update on Librem 5 USA shipping parity?

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We are getting super close. It took a bit longer to refine the manufacturing process to improve our yields for the latest batch but we’ve made all of the phones for normal outstanding orders up to shipping parity and are shipping through those this week, and all that’s remaining is the anti-interdiction orders, which I’ve been contacting customers about to coordinate the steps.

If you define shipping parity as “the moment that an order placed today will ship within the standard 10 business days” then I think we’d be there within a few days as we would be able to complete the remaining backlog in that time. If you define it as “the moment all backlogged orders are filled” then it’s murkier because new orders are coming in all the time, but even in that case I’d say possibly add a week. That said, I will probably hold off on announcing it publicly until a bit after that to ensure we have some wiggle room for the influx of new orders we’re expecting.

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What about us second class, non-USA Librem 5 customers who placed our orders long before there was such a thing as a Libren 5 USA? How long will it take to reach shipping parity on those phones?

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Wrong topic for that question.

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I asked the same question on May 13th and it was off topic then too. Months go by and it’s still not a topic that Purism likes to discuss since there are no good answers for those people. Purism builds a business based on a given price for their product. When momentum builds, instead of rewarding their early adopters who paid in advance, they double the price, create “new supply lines” and put their earlier customers to the back of the line so that Purism can collect twice as much on each sale instead of delivering on previous commitments. “Separate Supply Lines” I guess that Purism has to say something when people call them out on these dishonest tactics.

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