Usually, it's a price increase from your lamination supplier. Inevitably, the price is marked up to keep profit margins where they were. The cost to you is much more than merely the material increase.

At this point, your next step might be to investigate off-shore sources, who often offer attractive pricing. Problem solved, right? But, as many soon learn, using offshore sources is sometimes a disaster waiting to happen. 

If you are an experienced lamination user/buyer, you are all too familiar with the day-to-day problems that can arise: burrs caused by the die, gamma in the material, incomplete annealing, etc. whether or not you get completed stacks, especially in larger transformer and motor frame sizes. These day-to-day problems are usually solved with a quick trip to the plant.

What if your supplier is offshore? Multiply your difficulty by a factor of 10. What might have been an ordinary problem, solved with a quick trip to the plant, are now extraordinary when the run has been done, shipped, and taken into inventory. Imagine discovering a problem in the fifth box of a 10-box shipment from your offshore supplier, and the bill has already been paid! And, your product still has to compete with the Asian one!

If you are a small volume user, then we have many ways to meet your needs at a price that will keep you competitive.