Helpful hints to ensure timely deliveries of terahertz products and THz systems

No matter what type of business you operate, delivering on time is essential, because ‘Timely deliveries make for high customer and client satisfaction’. That is beyond any reasonable doubt and  it applies to terahertz industry in general. Yet TERASENSE as its integral part has  some peculiarities that must be taken in consideration.

First, each of our customers needs to consider lead time well in advance.

As all of our clients know that we do not keep any off-the-shelf products, i.e. readily available in stock. Instead we manufacture only on demand (because customer’s preferences for specs and customization may differ. Besides quite a few customers especially those involved in certain research or scientific projects need customized products, viz THz cameras optimized at certain frequency or some upgraded terahertz generator.

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Our typical lead time is 3 months for standard products. First of all that applies to such product items as  broad-band single pixel THz detectors with standard  (by default) optimization at the frequency 100GHz. It also applies to our standard  2D THz camera models  like Tera-256 (16x16 pixels) and Tera-1024 (32x32 pixels)  and Tera-4096, which are  identical in all respects except for the size of sensor array size (active imaging area). We are pretty sure that we can accomplish the fabrication & supply mission for a good half of our fixed frequency  terahertz  wave sources within  prescribed limits. Mostly such ‘easy’ category includes generators for frequency 100 GHz and 140 GHz, as well as  our  high speed linear scanner system at 100 GHz  that has become our flagship product  designed specifically to fill the needs in non-destructive testing and quality control for various industrial applications. Once in a while we may even have some of these product available stock, but  they are sold off on a first-come-first-serve bases fairly quickly.

With that in mind, sometimes, depending on the current situation, we may be able to shorten our standard lead times upon customer's request. Our production department specialists are known to have worked miracles in the past by reducing lead times by 20-50% and will surely do it again, if  necessary and when possible. Ultimately, it all depends on the availability of components in stock. This is why we encourage all our customers to  let us  know in advance which particular piece of equipment they have set their eyes upon. That information may serve as a sort of pre-order to allow preparing beforehand.

However, there are certain groups of products for which it is highly unlikely that we will be able to  shorten delivery times.

This group of product is comprised of our  terahertz  sources 200GH and 300 GHz    or higher ‘exotic’ frequencies  viz 400Ghz or 580 GHz, which include  built-in frequency multipliers,  which we have to buy from other supplier. This considerably limits our ability for  maneuvering and for the most part he lead time for such generator a or THz imaging  systems that include them is 3.5 months at least without regard for possible negative impact by pandemic. In fact during these challenging times of epidemiological ordeals these lead times tend to be 4 months, as our components suppliers do suffer from the crisis and often delay component deliveries.

We hope this information will be useful for many people asking to expedite deliveries or simply considering a purchase of our equipment. To cut a long story short, the rule of thumb and the key to success here is to give us an early notice, so that we could prepare in advance.  There is an old adage “Live and let live’. Well in our case it may need to be  rehashed to “Think ahead and let us plan ahead to help you!”