High-tech manufacturing organizations closely collaborate with strategic supply chain partners, but the cross-functional teams often find the process challenging.
Our experience with many high-tech customers has shown that much of this cross-functional collaboration happens via email on an ad hoc basis. The results are uniformly bad.
- Supply chain teams and supply chain partners spend more time (non-value added) chasing people and information
- Long cycle times
- Lack of accurate information for decision-making
This situation is untenable for fast Supply Chains that need to operate, collaborate, and be on the same page. Without a systematic approach and cross-functional processes with key suppliers, supply chain teams operate in crisis mode, under stress, and without readily available data to make effective decisions.
ZFlow provides a systematic and cross-functional approach for aligning your organization and key supply chain partners.
Case Study Highlights
Industry: High-tech (Global Networking Equipment Manufacturer)
Geography (Global): HQ in North America, CM/ODM/Component Manufacturers in Asia Pacific, EU, and Mexico
Scope: Workflows for Cost Management Collaboration, NPI Engineering, Component Engineering, Supply Chain Ops, and Supplier Developement
Cross-functional Teams: NPI Engineering, Component Engineering, Sourcing, Supply Chain Operations
Strategic Supply Chain Partners: Contract Manufacturing Partners, Distribution Hubs, Key Component Manufacturers (PCB, ASIC..)
Systems Connected: Coupa, SAP, Oracle, Agile PLM
Total number of stakeholders involved: 300+ globally
Key Strategic Supply Chain Collaboration Issues
- Cross-functional teams and strategic supplier teams primarily relied on email to collaborate on several critical processes related to NPI Engineering, NPI Sourcing, Test Engineering, Component Engineering, Supplier Quality, and Cost Management
- Strategic supplier performance evaluation and development was complicated because of the number of people across functions involved in the process
- Systematic supplier communication (for engineering, compliance, sustainability, cost management..) with hundreds of suppliers was difficult
Strategic Supply Chain Partner Portal
The organization adopted ZFlow to work closely with key supply chain (contract manufacturers, distribution hubs, and component manufacturers) partners. Several critical workflows related to NPI Engineering, Test Engineering, Cost Management, Component Engineering, and Supply Chain Ops were designed so that internal cross-functional teams from the organization and strategic supply chain partners could coordinate systematically via workflow-driven collaboration to share/use information and complete many of the activities transparently.
Some of the advanced workflows from different areas include
Component Engineering
- Signal Integrity Test and Validation
- Component data collection
Strategic Sourcing
- Supplier Performance Assessment
- Supplier Action
Supply Chain Operations
- Purchase Price Variance
- Excess Inventory Collaboration
- Finished Good Transfers
Workflows and Integration in the Strategic Supply Chain Portal
Related Case Studies
NPI Excellence Case Study