No More Scrambling for Parts: Distributors Help Fulfill Demands

(Source: William Potter/Shutterstock.com)

Published August 27, 2021

Mouser Electronics Technical Content Team | Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

The electronics industry and supply chain have faced significant challenges in recent years. Reduced raw resource availability, chip shortages, and transportation issues continue to wreak havoc on already-fragile supply lines. Demand continues to rise as well, with data-driven processes, 5G devices and infrastructure (which require upgraded hardware), industrial automation, and other applications driving demand higher and higher. The resulting supply-chain delays and uncertainty have left customers scrambling for parts, nervously waiting, and needing support in planning inventories and schedules. Electronics distributors work to fill needs and solve pain points as customers grapple with component shortages and increased demand.

Designers are thinking differently about the way they approach design and where they source products. Sadly, in some instances, engineers have slowed their design work. Others have continued to design without being able to produce. Conversations have shifted from keeping good pace and timing to what they can and can't do—what projects to keep, what projects to eliminate, and what projects can be done without certain components. This new journey has also complicated the task of sourcing and buying components.

“These tasks are stressful to begin with and even harder when parts are also in high demand,” said Coby Kleinjan, Mouser Electronics vice president of Americas Customer Service and Sales. Currently, buyers find themselves not just wondering whether they bought too much or too little. They're juggling multiple manufacturers for each product.

Sourcing and buying components are complex tasks in the best of times and extraordinarily difficult in today's design and manufacturing landscape. Whereas Just-In-Time (JIT) and lean manufacturing have dominated electronics design and manufacturing for decades, these processes rely on two characteristics absent in today's supply chain: predictability and reliability.

"With reduced access to raw resources, chip shortages, and transportation issues, the state of the electronics supply chain are anything but predictable and reliable,” Kleinjan said. “Accordingly, customer needs have changed.”

Most significantly, customers work on forecasting component needs further ahead of manufacturing testing and production, and they want to be confident that they have ordered the right amount. Seeking solutions, many customers are considering their own inventory, and they want to harness data insights to help predict needs. Customers also want simple, reliable, and streamlined support—in both process and people—to help them navigate engineering and production.

One thing is clear: “Companies doing well are the ones who have adapted and stayed flexible; the ones that are having a hard time are the ones who have continued to use what they used yesterday,” Kleinjan said.

Recent shortages and higher demand have strained familiar channels, disrupted the status quo, and forced customers to find alternatives to help keep them moving forward. Until recently, customers have worked directly with individual electronics manufacturers to access product lines throughout design and manufacturing processes. Electronics distributors are now filling this niche more and working to solve other purchasing pain points, Kleinjan said.

Graham Munson, Vice President Customer Service-EMEA, commented: “Our investment in inventory at significant levels facilitates the opportunity for our customers to find the products they need from an extensive list of suppliers, therefore helping when the supply chain of these products becomes difficult.”

Accordingly, distributors are increasingly aiming to understand customer project needs and to help engineers innovate with new products instead of just reusing designs from previous eras. This shifts the customer-distributor relationship from being purely transactional to one of partnership.

“Now more than ever, customers need more than just support on components,” said Chris Elwell, Mouser’s Director of Customer Development. “Providing strategic value helps us cultivate a broader partnership with customers.”

Distributors are working to solve customers’ delivery and scheduling issues by helping plan extended design and manufacturing schedules. Called predictive anticipation, this means building out projects six or 12 months in advance, sometimes even longer, and having components arrive at the right place and time.

“Scheduling and delivery are critical,” Elwell said. “Because distributors are at the center of the supply chain, we're able to help customers with these challenges, sometimes even before they know what questions to ask.”

Reduced availability of raw resources, chip shortages, and transportation issues have forced designers and buyers to seek new avenues for bringing projects from design to market. In response, electronics distributors are filling roles previously provided by manufacturers and are helping revive engineering and production by collaborating with customers to solve purchasing pain points.

Mouser’s philosophy has always been to “do right” by customers and make engineering and manufacturing as seamless as possible. Helping to solve new pain points is an evolution of Mouser’s customer service philosophies and practices rather than a change.

“Tomorrow's innovations require design engineers and buyers understand challenges and needs, find the best solutions, and adapt—sometimes very quickly—to changing conditions.” Kleinjan said. “That means we have to do the same.”