Develop Your Plan | Inventory Advice | Order Placement | Warehouse Receiving

Data Collection | Legislation Info | Part Identification | Supplier Roadmaps

Proactive communications with your key suppliers regarding your transitioning material needs is very important.

Now that you understand the challenges associated with varying component supplier policies related to part number changes and the varying timelines associated with compliant product availability, it is important to develop a plan for:

• Evaluating supplier roadmaps and capabilities
• Identifying any supply issues that will impede your organization's ability to meet critical production deadlines
• Evaluating supplier limitations in processing compliant vs. non-compliant part orders to keep inventories clean and ensure delivery of the correct parts
• Early communication of your own manufacturing roadmap and pipelining of compliant parts
• Gathering RoHS compliance information on the specific components in your BOMs

 

It is important to note that indications by a supplier of their manufacturing readiness may not translate immediately into commercial availability. In the worst cases, this may lag by several months. Reliability of supply of either compliant or non-compliant parts may become unpredictable as we approach the European Union deadlines. Since the combination of legislative deadlines and manufacturing incompatibility between parts may place very strict timing requirements on your materials pipelines, it is advisable to:

• Communicate your needs to your suppliers early
• Specifically ask for commercial availability projections

Consider information services like Arrow Risk Manager, which provide procurement risk information on specific components including lead-times.

It is important to clearly define how you intend to communicate which version of a component (in instances where the supplier is not changing the base part number) is required. We suggest the creation of a new Customer Part Number but regardless of your decision on how best to manage this issue, you should communicate with your entire supply base and make sure they have the business processes in place to ensure delivery of the correct version.

In addition, if your products are subject to the European Union's RoHS Directive, you will need to collect materials content and RoHS compliance information from your component suppliers.  Please visit our section on gathering RoHS compliance information to learn more about how to develop an effective plan for collecting and storing materials content data.