Spring Air Diversifies Vendors to Keep Production Flowing

December 9, 2021  by Laurie Northington in Business Strategy, Industry   

This move will also help reduce dependence on domestic raw materials and ease allocations, which have become more common in the industry.

“In these uncertain times, we need to be agile and strategic in our sourcing of materials,” said Nick Bates, president, Spring Air International. “With the supply chain under tremendous pressure we need to mitigate the crunch -- now more than ever -- to support our retail partners and keep product flowing without sacrificing quality. Because we are a licensing network, we have a competitive edge in that we have more options to source globally than our purely domestic competitors.”

Developing an effective mitigation strategy by taking advantage of its new domestic and foreign sources, Spring Air’s effort has been successful in finding consistent and or superior quality materials from several state-of-the art manufacturers that are producing springs and other components needed here in the United States.

“The drive for these changes is fueled by our commitment to our customers for timely delivery,” Bates says. “As long as we can find the same quality materials that protects the integrity of our products and doesn’t dramatically impact pricing, we will continue to be creative with our sourcing, which will result in a more competitive delivery schedule for our customers.”

Spring Air has also tapped its domestic licensing network as an additional resource. Spring Air Northeast is producing its own pocket coils for its own use and offering remaining inventory to other licensees.

Bates says diversifying vendors will be a permanent fix for Spring Air. “We live in a world where multi-sourcing has simply become smart business and protects our licensees from supply chain disruptions related to a single supplier.”