AUGUST 2020 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 9
by Sagi Reuven, SIEMENS DIGITAL INDUSTRIES
If you follow the financial reports in electronics
manufacturing, you know that the average cost of
materials can easily represent around 90% of the
cost of the product. In addition, we can all agree that
during the last decade, the number of products man-
ufactured and their complexity is skyrocketing. If you
pour into this mix the demand to lower the cost and
shorten the time-to-market, the only way to thrive is
to master how to get the most out of your resources.
(To read the full column, click here.)
Sagi Reuven is a business
development manager for the
electronics industry, Siemens
Digital Industries. Download
your free copy of the book The
Printed Circuit Assembler's
Guide to… Advanced Manu-
facturing in the Digital Age from Mentor, a Siemens
Business, and visit I-007eBooks.com for other free,
educational titles.
Lean Digital Thread:
Driving Productivity
Excellence—Lean
PCB Manufacturing
Nolan Johnson is managing
editor of
SMT007 Magazine.
Nolan brings 30 years of
career experience focused
almost entirely on electronics
design and manufacturing.
To contact Johnson, click here.
Christophe Begue). In one of his recent articles
on inventory management
[1]
, Quentin wrote:
"Electronics is an industry where some
companies seem to have ample cash, and
others have constant issues maintain-
ing sufficient cash flow. The problem can
be especially noticeable in the electron-
ics manufacturing services (EMS) industry,
where a kind of double jeopardy exists:
first, they are often paid by their custom-
ers on 90-day terms but must pay semicon-
ductor suppliers in 30 days. Secondly, their
customers' forecasts are often relatively
inaccurate, forcing the EMS companies to
hold inventory for weeks to months.
Bottom line: they often are forced to pay
for components long before they get paid
for the assemblies containing those
components."
What we learned from building our August
issue was that good inventory management
not only helps smooth out your inbound sup-
ply chain and cash flow, but that there is
ongoing development work to improve inven-
tory management within the walls of your
factory that can cut down on labor hours
(increasing staff availability for decision-mak-
ing tasks), increase pick-and-place line effi-
ciencies, improve management of consign-
ment parts, and more.
In our previous reporting on smart factories,
we've tried to determine how an EMS firm can
get started on moving toward Industry 4.0.
Perhaps, for some, inventory management is
a great place to start. We're interested to hear
what you think.
SMT007
Reference
1. Quentin Samelson, "Five new blockchain use cases
for electronics," Medium, June 5, 2018.
