3-minute read · John Foley

Five Countries, One Car

Every border a part crosses adds time you have to plan for.

The first Tesla Roadster pulled its parts from five countries: cells from Asia, packs from Thailand, a chassis from England, panels from France, and final assembly in California.² The car was small. The supply chain was not. Each handoff added transit time, customs, currency exposure and one more place for a schedule to slip.

Chain Reaction Episode 4 follows that car through the value chain: Tesla Kept Just 7% of a Lotus (opens in a new tab)

This week's number. Factories held $610.0 billion of durable goods inventory at the end of September, up for twelve months in a row.¹ Inventories can climb when parts take longer to arrive and plants hold more of them to stay covered.

Why It Matters

Distance hides in your lead times. A part quoted at eight weeks from a far-off supplier is often eight weeks of production plus weeks on the water, at the port and in customs. If your planning system carries only the supplier's quote, your plan is short by the trip.

Every handoff is a risk. A part that crosses two borders before it reaches you depends on two sets of rules, two sets of carriers and two sets of holidays. One delay anywhere stops the line at your plant.

Cost lives in the landed number. The cheapest unit price can carry the most freight, customs charges, inventory and expediting. Compare suppliers on what the part costs at your dock, not on the quote.

Across the Value Chain

• Design: a drawing that calls for one specific part locks you into that part's supplier and its trip.
• Plan: lead times must include transit, port and customs time, not just the supplier's quote.
• Source & Procure: compare suppliers on landed cost and on-time history, not unit price.
• Make: a late part from the far end of the chain stops the same line as a late local part.
• Fulfill: your promise dates inherit every delay upstream.
• Service: spare parts from a distant supplier need their own stock plan, or installed customers wait.

What I'd Do This Week

Sales and operations planning is the key: it sets the plan that the other four checks support.

1. Sales and operations planning: put your three longest-traveling parts on this month's sales and operations planning agenda, with their full door-to-door lead time, and agree who owns each one.
2. Lead times: compare the lead time in your planning system with the last three actual receipts for those parts. Where actuals run longer, update the system by Friday.
3. Landed cost: for your top 20 imported parts, add freight, customs charges and the carrying cost of the inventory to the unit price. Rank suppliers on that number.
4. Suppliers: ask each far-off supplier for its own sub-tier sources. If a key input comes from one place, write that down as a known risk.
5. Freight: check which of those parts move on a single lane or carrier, and name a backup route before you need it.

The Bottom Line

A long supply chain can be the right choice. It just has to be planned as a long supply chain. Count the whole trip, cost the whole trip, and know where it can break.

Which of your parts travels the farthest to reach your line? Reply and tell me. It comes straight to me.

If this issue turns up a part, a supplier or a category you cannot afford to get wrong, that is what a 30-minute call is for. Book a 30-minute call.

John Foley
Founder, Foley Strategic Advisory

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Sources

1. U.S. Census Bureau, "Advance Report on Durable Goods Manufacturers' Shipments, Inventories and Orders, September 2026," released October 27, 2026 (advance estimates; revised November 3, 2026). census.gov (opens in a new tab)
2. TechEBlog, February 2008, as shown on screen in Chain Reaction Episode 4. The source gives the battery cells' origin only as Asia.