Many assembly houses, especially in high-cost areas such as Boston and Silicon Valley, are facing rising real estate and staffing costs. This is, in turn, making it more difficult for them to remain competitive against lower-cost operations located outside the United States. When you couple this with the fact that providing electronic component quotes for customer projects can impact the purchasing staff, slow down customer response time, and cause a project to go elsewhere, you realize that you have to re-balance the equation and improve efficiency in order to keep winning the business. But how?
Start with this simple evaluation exercise:
- Does the RFQ (request for quote) response time affect the award of potential PCBA projects?
- Do you have a plan that responds to the ups and downs of customer demand?
- Is your goal to reduce expenses, develop a variable resource formula to address demand, provide a more consistent turn-time for your customer, and maintain profitability?
Potential solutions:
- Cross train staff from other areas of the organization to supplement inconsistent RFQ’s.
- Allow purchasing to work remotely (doesn’t address cost but can improve retention in high-cost areas)
- Consider outsourcing the Quoting and Procurement function to a Contract Procurement and Kitting Service to level the demand, improve the quote turn-time, and win a higher percentage of awards.
With a Contract Procurement and Kitting Service, you get:
- Dedicated Coordinators.
- Dedicated IP Phone Lines.
- Kits optimized for Assembly.
- Strategic inventory management.
- Lower variable cost procurement operation.
If you partner with the right firm, the outcome should be increased profitability for Assembly.
California Integration Coordinators is in the business of Contract Procurement and Kitting. If you want to know more, give us a call at (530) 626-6168.
