In today’s competitive supply-chain market, it’s not just about putting parts in a box. Global distributors to industrial and commercial users of electronic components and computer products must go above and beyond just selling and shipping – they must go to the extreme, to provide value-added services and solutions.

Above and beyond inventory and shipping

Any company can hold inventory and then pack and ship. The real business of helping customers goes on behind the scenes, before the package is loaded onto a truck. A full-service electronic components company, such as Arrow Electronics, provides design engineering, manufacturing, system integration and post-manufacturing and supply-chain management services to industrial and commercial original equipment manufacturers and intellectual property-based companies.

The distribution team can include solutions architects, new product introduction staff, quality assurance experts, program managers, procurement engineers, manufacturing engineers, as well as shipping and logistics experts.

For example, Arrow Electronics helps customers at every product lifecycle stage, from product concept and design, to prototype and production manufacturing, to customer deployment and recycling end-of-life issues. For the customer, it’s about speeding technology to market in the most efficient manner possible.

Chip-to-final-product service
Customers expect door-to-door service from their electronic components distribution companies, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that the product has to be delivered to – or even from – a customer’s own address.

An example begins with computer chips stored in the aisles of a component company’s distribution center. A customer buys the chips and asks the company to immediately install them onto customer-provided computer boards. The components provider then whisks the boards to its own programming center for software installation and, in the same building at the company’s value-add and logistics center, the boards are installed into the customer’s central processing units.

To complete the chip-to-final product service, the component company’s logistics center ships the completed computers in the customer’s boxes, with the customer’s name on them, directly to the customer’s end customers. At every step of the process, the customer has saved manufacturing time, delivery time and expense.

Have the hardware, but not the software?

A full-service distributor of electronic components, such as Arrow, can help. Software solutions architects can design the products and test prototypes. Have the software, but need help choosing the right hardware platform, or even need help with designing and producing the product’s exterior look? Arrow can offer a range of hardware platform solutions, and also offer human factors and design assistance to see the product through to the customer’s market.

More than World-Class Distribution Arrow Electronics includes distribution centers and logistics and value-add centers and partners across the globe, and offers comprehensive design engineering, manufacturing and post-manufacturing services: Design Engineering: · Design Services, including flat panel & display, system hardware, OS configuration and development · Professional Services, including product specification, RoHs compliance, design validation, process documentation and training · Certification/Testing, including UL/CE, NEBS, thermal & electrical Manufacturing: · New Product Introduction, including proof of concept, first article, production · Support, including program management, custom reporting, revision control · Integration, including system/subsystem, flat panel & display, image replication Post-Manufacturing: · Advanced Logistics, including inventory management, direct fulfillment, third-party logistics, service parts logistics, customer-branded shipments, asset tagging, product serialization, global logistics · Hardware Maintenance, including standard warranty, depot repair, advanced exchange, on-site maintenance · Installation, including project coordination, site prep, staging, relocations, on-site CE support · Tech-Support/Call Center, including commercial/proprietary software, hardware diagnostics, triage, dispatch, incident management

Partners around the globe

What if a customer in North America wants to enter a European market? It makes sense for the customer to work with its trusted distributor in North America, which is partnering with a value-add and logistics center in Europe. Electronic components from the distributor’s suppliers can be shipped to the partner, and supply-chain and assembly solutions can be provided to exact specifications, as if from the full-service distributor in North America, but nearer to the regions of end customers, saving time and costs.

I need it now!

The customer’s system is down, which could result in them letting their own customers down. Can the distribution center deliver the component now? No “standard” shipping company can help. Sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures. What’s the nearest airport? Who at the distribution center can take a quick plane trip and personally deliver the component? Or who can drive eight hours tonight to be there when repair crews arrive in the morning? It happens, sometimes.

Whatever it takes. That’s why it’s called “Extreme Distribution.”