CASE STUDY: SYSTECH

Created more than 20 years ago, SYSTECH designs and manufactures prototypes for PCBA, sub-assemblies and complete assemblies in small and medium series.

Quoting time reduction, Increase of the added value, Stronger supplier partnerships ”

50% of quotes delivered in less than 1 day against 3 days before.

Less time spent in data manipulations, more focus on the value provided to the customer.

Targeted and precise price requests, a win-win approach with the suppliers.”

Cyril BERNARD, Purchasing Manager | SYSTECH – France | 48p

THE CONTEXT

Within the scope of its provision of quotes for its customers, SYSTECH goal is to send its offer to the customer as quickly as possible. Being positioned in a small and medium series market, responsiveness constitutes a major customer expectation and, in particular, being the first to respond to the customer is a key factor to business success.

When preparing a quote, quoting electronic components is an important task, often incompatible with the target lead time. For small and medium series, the issue is the low added value associated with coding 80% of the components that represent only 20% of the cost.

THE CHALLENGE

SYSTECH was consistently unable to respond within the desired lead time to customers’ requests. Up to 70% of the flow of customer requests is made up of requests for prospects, i.e. an important potential but which ultimately only represents less than 10% of the turnover, due to a lack of sufficient resources. But increasing the resources to improve the response time is not necessarily a satisfactory solution either.

The challenge for Systech was therefore to combine these two apparently conflicting objectives: responding in a very short time while using only the same resources.

THE SOLUTION

SYSTECH adopted the Rapid Quote Tool software (RQT) to combine the implementation of relevant reference codes in the short lead time expected by the customers without increasing resources.

The customer software rollout was carried out remotely and product ergonomics allowed users to handle the RQT package by themselves. In less than one day the team was operational.

SYSTECH’s operational approach consists in carrying out a first BOM coding to identify the positions representing 80% of the cost. To achieve this first step, it was necessary to send price requests to the suppliers or else consult their online catalogs. Depending on the situation, this step could take from a few hours to several days. With RQT, this step is now performed for a few minutes only. The 80-20 is available immediately.

In addition, the tools available in RQT also make it possible to assess the stock from a number of distributors and thus determine the availability of components for the quote to be drawn up.

…

Additional benefits in the relationship with suppliers: the requests for prices sent, if necessary, to the suppliers are focused on the important components, and furthermore, the manufacturers’ references (MPN) were controlled through RQT. The suppliers, therefore, receive very targeted and specific requests, creating a win-win environment of cooperation.

With a solution for quickly preparing reference codes, SYSTECH can now ask its customers, if necessary, to provide a complete BOMs and ensure its response times.

SYSTECH also uses Buymanager PSS. Cyril Bernard, manager of the purchasing and quote team believes that the RQT and PSS solutions, sharing the database, are very complementary.

OBJECTIVES ACHIEVED

After less than one month of using RQT

Quoting time reduction: 50% of quotes delivered in less than 1 day

50% of quotes delivered in less than 1 day and 80% delivered within 7 days, against 50% delivered in less than 3 days and 80% delivered within 9 days before implementation.

Increase of the added value by the team

Less time spent in data manipulations, more focus on the value provided to the customer.

Stronger supplier partnerships

Targeted and precise price requests, a win-win approach with the suppliers.