Roundtable: How Do You Survive Your Supply Chain?

- by Kerry McManama

Your supply chain is crucial to the engineering, tooling and manufacturing of a product. It can give you a competitive advantage and spell the difference between success and failure. PTC Express asked three experts from very different design and engineering shops how their supply chain impacts their work and how they connect and collaborate with their supply chain to achieve the best results.

Jomichael Porter, Engineer, Ignition, Inc., Plano, Texas USA
www.ignition.com

Marco Arnone, Executive VP/GM, Enser Corporation., Cinnaminson, New Jersey, USA
www.enser.com

Peter Newbury, QFD Principal, QFD Consultants, Inc., Seattle, Washington, USA
www.qfdinc.com


PTC Express asked: How does your supply chain impact the way you work? Does your supply chain experience differ by design project, customer input, and internal resources?

Porter: Ignition understands that supply chain management is a major component for partnering with clients on successful projects. In some instances, a client may already have a clearly defined supply chain process in place, and ignition will then integrate the defined process into our project. If a customer does not have a defined supply chain process or is looking for our input on better supply chain performance, Ignition will use its global resources to make recommendations.

Arnone: In today's highly competitive environment, how you manage your supply chain is the differentiator between a successful project and a failure. Enser's supply chain is a critical element in the success of our company and it is imperative that it is working efficiently and effectively.

Supply chain differs from project to project and client to client. Because we are an engineering service, there are some projects in which our clients stipulate the suppliers we must use and there are other projects where we can pick and choose. Managing all these different suppliers can be a daunting task if you do not have the right tools and procedures in place to manage them.

Newbury: As a service provider, QFD sees the supply chain from two different views: one internal to QFD and the other engaging with the clients. Our internal chain is pretty short: employees/contractors, hardware/software and clients/earnings.

QFD also participates in and is affected by every client's supply chain. We've seen many examples where supply-chain requirements and changes (both downstream into manufacturing and upstream towards marketing) substantially affect schedules, decisions and quality of the end product.


PTC Express asked: How do you ensure the supply chain is up to date and has access to the latest information?

Newbury: Communication, connections and collaboration - communication with vendors to stay up to date on their processes, needs and potential directions; connections through industry (and outside industry) to stay abreast of general technical capabilities; and collaboration with vendors to push a new process into reality. QFD participates in all stages of these, both internally and with/for clients. Basically, it amounts to keeping your eyes, ears and mind open as much as possible.

Porter: Confirmation that the supply chain has the latest information would occur at an initial assurance review conducted by the project manager with all key stakeholders - and regular reviews are held during the lifecycle of the project to benchmark results and cover cross-functional success factors and to ensure the project is running smoothly.

Arnone: Enser uses the "3 Cs" to ensure our supply chain is working properly - communication, collaboration and control. The tool we use to ensure that we adhere to the 3Cs is Windchill ProjectLink, which we implemented back in June of 2002. Not only has ProjectLink streamlined document and design management and maintained confidentiality and information security, but it has also reduced costs for our suppliers.


PTC Express asked: How do you conduct design reviews when they involve 3rd parties?

Arnone: ProjectLink is a Web-based project space where coworkers, partners and suppliers can manage projects, share information, optimize product designs and conduct real-time product reviews. A true Web-based solution that is easy to use on the client end is a critical element of the success of this solution.

Porter: One method is face-to-face meetings in conference rooms with the Pro/ENGINEER windows projected onscreen, as many of our manufacturers and clients have local representatives or are close enough to travel for the reviews. We also send the data and simply discuss it on a conference call. Or, we have used online Web conferencing systems to conduct design reviews. Keeping the review in the Pro/ENGINEER environment greatly streamlines the process.

Newbury: One of our primary goals is to embed ourselves in the client's process to the point where we become a trusted member of the team, but with the extra benefits of a sharply honed skill set and outside experience that can help solve product development issues. Within that role, we strive to make '3rd party' nonexistent.


PTC Express asked: Do you view your supply chain as a competitive advantage?

Porter: We are, in essence, the first step of the supply chain, so in that sense we can and do create a significant competitive advantage, and this is a compelling component of our value proposition for our clients. The downstream elements in the supply chain, such as procurement, manufacturing, logistics, delivery, and post-sale support will vary based on product placement and the client's niche.

Ignition's role is to assist the client in leveraging the supply chain as a competitive advantage. We use our expertise as a world class design firm to create best-of-breed products that can use effective and efficient supply chain capabilities.

Newbury: We don't view QFD's supply chain itself as a competitive advantage, but we do view the results of that supply chain as our main competitive advantage. Our supply chain is based on staying connected within the relevant communities, making sure we get the best software/hardware and get the most out of it, and finding the clients we can do excellent work with. There isn't anything strategic in that process, but combining those results together with our knowledge, enthusiasm and dedication is our competitive advantage.

Arnone: It is not so much that the supply chain itself is a competitive advantage, because our competition has access to the same suppliers, but it is how the whole process is managed internally and how we communicate/coordinate with everyone in the supply chain. Since it's inception in 1947, Enser has been able to evolve and thrive within the industry by implementing and embracing the latest technology, thus keeping us a step ahead of our competition.