Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1483130
NOVEMBER 2022 I SMT007 MAGAZINE 19 ere's more of them than ever. We've always had a process where a customer needs it in a certain time frame, but the lead times are a little bit longer than that. How do you attack the component constraints? When it was four or five items, that was fairly manageable. When it's 25, 35, or 45 across every single customer, we've had to redevelop those processes to han- dle different volumes. Shiing, quoting, and purchasing have become one entity where they really work together to find the best ways to get the customer what they need, when they need it. Johnson: What new tools have you included? Many of these functions seem like they're well- suited for soware, letting the computer do the grunt work. Sciberras: We use a soware tool called StockCQ which gives us a very good idea of what everybody has. It's an awesome starting point. at soware gives us an idea of where we need to put our effort. en there are quite a few homegrown tools we've designed to give our team bite-size chunks so they can man- age and not be overwhelmed by the number of components they're working on. We are using some of those tools to put the information in front of the people and then automatically updating it in real time so they can see how we're doing. Johnson: I'm sure that has an impact on the major categories for floor planning. ere are the materials, supplies, labor, process, work- flow, and time. What is the impact from using these external and internal tools? Sciberras: ey make a huge impact. We're making progress every single day. We feel it keeps getting better, but it's not as easy as it was before. I have a tremendous team that is working very hard to find ways to make it happen every single day. Without these tools, we would have drowned. You hear a lot of stories about contract manu- facturers that are struggling to just get things out the door with all their different challenges. I'm sure some companies will not be able to survive this catastrophic event. It's just been so difficult. ey have helped us grow. Even in these crazy times, we're getting larger. I feel we're winning in places because we're not doing what every- one else was doing. We're not perfect, by any means, but we are getting better. Johnson: Tell me about your homegrown tools. Sciberras: SiliconExpert has been a huge piece for us. We do Mentor Graphics for DFM, but they're mainly helping us understand whether the designs will work and where we are. We use Valor for design reviews. We have some tremendous relationships with our distrib- utors. Because we have been around for 20 years, we have great relationships with distrib- utors that are helping us through. I have a very large IT support team compared to most com- panies our size. I also started in IT, so it's near and dear to my heart. e team is constantly using business intel- ligence soware or using soware or VBA scripts in Excel to present the information so people can do what they need to. It may take us 10 steps to buy a part that used to take us one. Each tool helps us do that more effectively. Johnson: It may take you 10 steps now under the current circumstances, right? Sciberras: ere's still only so much energy to go around and it's important to effectively I feel we're winning in places because we're not doing what everyone else was doing.