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66 I-CONNECT007 MAGAZINE I FEBRUARY 2026 He was spot on. With help from my team, I presented him a draft of the Plexus Global Sourc- ing Strategy a few months later, which I believe is still being used. It included a variety of tools for assessments of a company's technology, fit, and scalability, qual- ity system, and long-term financial viability. The cornerstone of our strategy was to have a mini- mum of three qualified, competitive suppliers for every type of technology we needed to support. It also included the process of supplier perfor- mance metrics and established supplier Quar- terly Business Reviews (QBRs) similar to the ones our customers held with us. This is what really set Plexus Sourcing apart from all our competitors. Our suppliers would tell you that we were differ- ent because we truly treated them as long-term partners who looked at the lowest total cost instead of unit price. While our competition chose suppliers based on quotes, we chose ours with our GSS, which required onsite assessments, including multiple annual trips to Asia and around the U.S. Two of my trips were particularly memorable. First, I was in Guangdong Province, China, during the SARS outbreak—a fact I didn't know until returning home. Second, I was stranded in main- land China on 9/11. I guess these times were just part of the job description. When it came to the painful process of getting cost reductions, we didn't want it to come out of our suppliers' margins; instead, we worked with our suppliers to find ways to reduce their cost by process improvements or design changes (DFM). This is where having subject matter experts as commodity specialists was a differentiator. While our competition would change suppliers for a nickel cost down, we worked with ours for a win- win outcome. Commodity Migration About halfway through my 15 years with Plexus, my friend and counterpart who managed all custom parts (except PCBs) decided to move back into his prior commodity specialist role, and recom- mended I take over his role. While electronic components were the 500-pound gorilla in terms of overall spend (as every PCB required thousands of components), PCBs were the equivalent on the custom side. From simple electronic assemblies and metal or plastic enclosures to plug-in-ready MRI medical devices, they all required PCBs. T H E R I G H T A PPROAC H Steve's Plexus Office on moving day; offices and/or buildings changed about every three years.