Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1067105
JANUARY 2019 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 27 that make sense? Shaughnessy: Sure. There are so many differ- ent takes on this. I just wanted to hear your side of it. Doherty: I would guess there isn't anybody who could say it's a great thing for suppliers to have extended lead times. They are all work- ing their tails off. They realize that when lead times have been pushed out, that means there's going to have dissatisfied customers and will work hard to ensure that they can they expand capacity and yields. This is where I think the users can help them- selves. The other area that we didn't talk about is looking at different technologies. There are a lot of applications for polymers or tanta- lum in the capacitor world where, again, the more flexible you can make your design and the more options you can accommodate, the better position you're putting your company to be able to source product. Johnson: That explanation makes a lot of sense to me. Everything starts to tie together—part availability, pricing volatility, rapidly chang- ing lead times, and premature parts obsoles- cence all come together as being symptoms of a measured response to a dramatic change in demand. Doherty: I think that's more than fair, Nolan. I think the solution is communication. The part- ners that you work with—specifically for those who work with Digi-Key—reach out and ask, "How can we help you with information? Can we show you the number of customers?" We have more and more API relationships with customers where we can provide information and help them. We have 100+ engineers on staff. We can review their BOM and give them a risk assessment, such as, "This product has much fewer customers than these other varia- tions." We, and frankly our suppliers, want custom- ers to design good, safe, long-life products. No one likes to see a customer in dire straits where there's been an obsolescence, and typically, those decisions aren't made at the spur of the moment. There's some thought that goes into it, so use your partners early in your supply chain, and save yourself that grief where the first time you pick up the phone isn't when you have a part shortage. Johnson: Dave, who do you want to talk to in the design chain? Do you want to talk to the original specifying engineers or the buyers? Where should they be plugging in for that conversation with Digi-Key? Doherty: From a title perspective, that varies company to company, but the definition is the person that has an influence on that BOM. It's really that AVL. For some compa - nies, it's one and the same; the buyer is the engineer. But in many of the larger compa- nies, the buyers will say, "My hands are tied. Once the BOM is handed over to me, I'm constrained. We've already gone through our testing and validation." Then, we need to be further upstream if we're going to provide any significant value. Johnson: That's a thought-provoking answer. How does Digi-Key plan to increase that connec- tion and make that known to the designer, so they know to check in with you? Doherty: We get about 1,400 contacts—techni- cal support questions or inquiries—from our customers a day. A lot of them already know to use us. I think so many people have come to