New Product Introduction
Your OEM customer has decided to launch a new product.
Time-to-market is essential, and for the product to be successful and to capture significant market share it must be on the market before competitors launch theirs.
Your customer's purchasing officer is requesting detailed insight in the material cost evolution for building the first prototypes, the production pilot run and the series volume production.
The first prototypes should be ready for test within four to five weeks, and you obtain a provisional Bill of Material (BOM) which will have several revisions in the weeks to come - design and layout changes are still ongoing. This present BOM alas shows broadline distributor names and their part numbers without references to manufacturers nor manufacturer's part numbers (MPN's).
The PCB Gerber files will only be finalised in the next three weeks, and your customer's R&D manager needs to know ASAP which are the long lead-time items on the BOM, and if there are any potential End-of-life (EOL) or obsolete component / allocation issues.
You are also requested to evaluate the Rohs compliancy of the Bill of Material, and to check and make proposals for form-fit-function compatible second source alternatives to ensure that each BOM-line can eventually be sourced from two independent manufacturers.
Of course you are extremely pleased with yet again a Request for Quotation from your long-standing and highly respected customer, who has just shared with you his tantalising vision of the huge potential this fantastic product has on the world market.
You agree that a detailed proposal will be ready within a week, in-line with what your competitors have committed to do...
Perhaps this sounds familiar to you.
Indeed, New Product Introduction (NPI) is daily business within any EMS organisation, and to a large extend success and growth depends on how fast and accurate the company can deal with multiple NPI projects simultaneously.
Resources are always limited, and these NPI projects often demand significant contribution from many departments in the organisation.
In the area of procurement, we offer to be your trusted partner for:
