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Lean Manufacturing and Supply Base Consolidation top management initiatives
We recently conducted an extensive survey to learn more about our customers' top management initiatives, their priorities when selecting a contract manufacturer and how they perceive Segue in the marketplace.
Customers Focus on Lean
Lean manufacturing continues to be a priority throughout the supply chain. Lean helps to increase efficiency, decrease waste and improve customer value. Management at Segue has long been committed to lean principles and employees are trained in 5S and the basic principles of lean. Segue employees the most advanced lean techniques of JIT, demand flow manufacturing and supplier managed inventory.
Supply Base Consolidation
Consolidation of the supply base requires vendors to have a strong business continuity plan in place to ensure best practices for:
- Rapid recovery of IT infrastructure and communications,
- Redundant offsite back-up of all critical documentation,
- Duplicity of critical tooling and equipment,
- Agreements in place with key vendors to support the partnership through any type of disaster.
Segue has a complete business continuity plan in place and is in compliance to emerging standard ISO 27001. An overview and the complete standard can be found here.
-For survey results on top purchasing criteria click here
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Think Global, Act Local
When dealing with overseas suppliers, many people are concerned about lead times and how we can minimize delays due to shipping. We recommend the following whenever dealing with any overseas supplier: - Establish Kanbans with suppliers that have a U.S. presence,
- Place blanket orders to support the Kanban with agreed upon fixed windows for reschedules and cancellations,
- Short term, we recommend initial shipments by air to eliminate the typical 5 week delay by boat.
In addition, localizing components is a key piece to minimizing lead times. Allow your vendors to be invovled in the design process to spec in components that can be localized in China. More tips for reducing lead times can be found here.
Segue offers its customers the ability to "Think Global, Act Local". For more information please contact us.
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Solar cabinet manufacturing sails to
Xiamen to be near its end customer
 Segue transferred end-to-end manufacturing of complex control cabinets to China for one of its customers. With their approval, this move allowed for decreased labor costs, as well as localization of materials. Overall, customer benefits included:
- 20% Cost Reduction
- Decreased lead times
- Decreased shipping costs
- Proximity to end customer
-Full Story
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