Is That Board Redesign Really Necessary?

Know for sure with a Global Engineering & Market Analysis Report

Engineers and buyers face a common pain point that’s rarely addressed effectively by open market vendors—identifying the amount of qualified stock of specific components across the globe at a given point in time.

A complete snapshot of worldwide component availability

Availability of worldwide stock can trigger certain buying decisions. If components are generally available, procurement can buy for the current job—but when stock is limited, buyers may want to purchase safety stock to ensure future component availability.

Engineers face a different problem. Many products, especially in the telecommunications and medical verticals, far outlive their planned lifecycles and those of the various components designed into the boards. Reworking existing products in a pinch disrupts R&D project flow for new, priority initiatives.

Imagine all the engineering hours saved with definitive availability information. But who has time for that kind of exhaustive search?

“Once we completely understood the challenge, Global scoured the worldwide market for the desired parts.”

Promotes better business decisions

Most independents do a good job of searching the internet to quickly identify a source for the needed parts to get the order and move on. Global Solutions takes it several steps further to provide engineers (and buyers) with significant added value—a picture in time of the global inventory positions of qualified stock. The Global Engineering & Market Analysis Report, a critical component of our Search & Rescue™ system, helps clients make major decisions on the ongoing sustainability of a product based on the amount of qualified stock in the market at a given point in time.

Qualified stock from trusted sources

Only items available from trusted sources are provided in our Global Engineering & Market Analysis Report. Keep in mind that all products are definitively qualified by our proprietary Validate™ Quality System before shipping to our clients. Validate goes well beyond the Independent Distributors of Electronics Association’s IDEA-STD-1010 standard https://idofea.org/ and enables us to achieve quality assurance levels that provide 100% peace of mind. If there is any question, we’ll send it to an independent testing facility at our expense.

The Engineering & Market Analysis Report captures exact part matches and will also look for similar products that will cross and can easily be qualified by engineering. Examples might include parts with higher temperature tolerances or faster speeds than the requested component. This process takes time, but can uncover available acceptable stock that may be overlooked by other distributors.

A real world example

We recently received a call from a customer who was facing a line down predicament. To assist this client, we engaged our Search & Rescue™ system which is offered to all of our Diamond customers.

Our engagement began with a discussion to understand the customer’s current situation, the product needed, and required delivery date. In this case, our customer was quoted $22 for the target product by the franchise distributor which meant our customer would have to build the assemblies at a loss. Another broker quoted the parts slightly cheaper, but didn’t have enough inventory to complete the order.

Once we completely understood the challenge, Global scoured the worldwide market for the desired parts. Encountering the same results as our customer on the target component, we asked ourselves, “what else might fly,” and looked at availability of alternative configurations of the item in the market. Next, turning to the manufacturer, we explored the available options to identify which would be easiest for our buyer to get approved by the engineering team.

In our Global Engineering & Market Analysis Report, we presented the entire scope of our findings including the initial discovery, alternative part numbers considered, the resources we engaged worldwide including the manufacturer, a listing of all qualified stock on earth, and our recommendation—in this case, to favor the variant with the higher, industrial-rated temperature spec for easier engineering approvals. In addition to the report, we also provided pricing, availability, data sheets, and product samples for all parts considered, along with a thorough explanation of the differences.

How did our customer benefit?

The client received our report and recommendations within 48 hours and qualified sample parts arrived 3 days later. Engineering approval was instantaneous followed by a quick turnaround and our client met the production deadline. Best of all, by locating an acceptable alternative configuration, we were able to provide the components at $11—nearly half the price of the franchise distributor—saving them around $10,000 on the job.

Massive value for Global clients

“Navigating the open market can be difficult and frustrating for our clients,” said Scott Smith, Global’s CEO. “We want to give them all available options so they can make the best decisions for their businesses—whether they buy the components from us or somewhere else. Though labor intensive for us, the Search & Rescue system gives our clients a distinct advantage. It’s part of the value we provide.”

For more information about Search & Rescue and Global Engineering & Market Analysis Report, please call us on 866-877-8625 or visit www.globalsolutionselectronics.com.