Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1357726
22 SMT007 MAGAZINE I APRIL 2021 inspection, labor hours, and delay vs. if you pay just a little bit more from supplier B, you can eliminate that. Rodgers: Exactly right. You must understand the total cost, including the total cost of qual- ity. How many in supply chain understand warranty? When you buy a low-cost compo- nent, it goes into your product, and that prod- uct is sold to customers. Now we're on the cus- tomer's side of the supply chain. How oen do those products get returned? What happens to those returns? What kind of root cause analysis is done on those returns? Can we trace those problems to specific components or suppliers? at information needs to get back to the sup- ply chain managers. Again, that's all part of the total cost of ownership for those components. Some of those are hard to measure. But what about a customer who was so angry with us because we did such a lousy job with their qual- ity problem or their warranty problem that they never buy from us again? at lost busi- ness can be traced back to a decision that was made by our supply chain management team to buy a low-cost component. Johnson: e previous administration was working on Buy America programs, and the incoming administration has continued to work bringing manufacturing back to the U.S. Do the smaller shops get more leverage work- ing underneath the umbrella of a government initiative? Is that going to be effective? Rodgers: In theory, this is where individual smaller businesses can band together into trade organizations. ese trade organizations are not always very effective. ey look at each other warily because these are typically com- petitors that are not really interested in work- ing together, but I think that's one of the ways that smaller businesses can create enough clout to be able to get the kind of changes that they're looking for. It's going to be really hard for a company of 150 people to develop their own independent supply chain, but if we see these government-led initiatives placing greater emphasis on buying American, and we see more influence of trade organizations that provide encouragement and support for these smaller businesses, there may be some hope for the future. But I guess my answer to you, Nolan, is yes. ere is an opportunity here. It's not going to happen because of an indi- vidual company. I think it's going to require some focused investment. ere will also need to be some investment on the front end upstream. ere will need to be some invest- ment in factories. ere will need to be the same great tax deals that we offered Foxconn to locate a factory in Wisconsin. We will need to think about the same kind of strategies to encourage American companies to make the same kind of investments in the U.S. Matties: Tim, we certainly appreciate your time today. ank you so much. SMT007