Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1483130
20 SMT007 MAGAZINE I NOVEMBER 2022 utilize that energy. I have increased both my supply chain and my program management departments because it takes a lot more energy to get the customers all the information they need. ey're depending on us to give them the information so they can go back to their manager and say, "is is when I'm going to have product." We must work harder to get that information. We've added staff to help us with that piece as well. Johnson: I imagine you have more computer soware and compute resources doing the research and more people on the phone having conversations with your customers and suppliers. Sciberras: Yeah, and more oen. We meet weekly or even more oen with most of our customers to review what we can and cannot build and what the hold-ups are. It just depends on what their needs are. Johnson: You have some- one on staff who proactively checks with your suppliers to get that information. Are your customers initiating that or is it internal? Sciberras: I think it's both. We saw allocation coming at the end of 2019. We said, "Okay, not this time allocation. You got us last time." We really prepared hard. We strategized and our long-term customers were all in. We all made great decisions. We could see further out so we planned ahead. Did they drop the ball? I don't have an answer as to what caused it, but it lasted longer than anybody anticipated. At this point, you have some fatigue, but you also have understanding. We've all been through this battle together and we've got some great relationships. Early on, we found the information was so hard to disseminate. We came up with "can build" and "good to build" reports with one of our customers. However, all their products are on a good to build. Maybe you have one com- ponent that's used on 10 different flavors on an assembly we build for a customer. It's very difficult to see how they all work together and what I can and cannot build. Well, if I want 300 of this product, can I get 400 of this one? How do they all work together? ese "can build" reports never existed pre-allocation, but nowadays they're a regular part of our conversation. Every one of my pro- gram managers does them. Each makes them a part of their conversations with their customers. Johnson: Did you find you needed any upgrade changes to your ERP MES sys- tems or was that stable for you? Sciberras: I'd say the soware itself was stable. We stay on top of it, making sure we're using the latest and greatest versions of the soware. It is a prime directive here that soware is always up to date. While we didn't need to install anything new, how we entered, manipulated, and reported that data definitely changed. Johnson: Tell me about that. Sciberras: It's about the constraints process. A typical order comes in, we look at the con- straints and make sure we're actioning those things immediately, so that we have more time