(This is a guest blog by Kevin Decker-Weiss, Managing Director, Router Solutions GmbH.)

The October issue of the Octopart Newsletter had an excellent article ("Purchasing for Manufacturing") by Sam Wurzel on the subject of parts procurement and pricing. It outlined in very clear terms the relationship between electronic companies and contract manufacturers. He ends the article with the conclusion that "For such a technologically advanced product category, electronic components are bought and sold using techniques which seem outdated, especially the RFQ system".

I couldn't agree more. We at Router Solutions have dedicated the better part of the past two decades to helping our customers improve their manufacturing flows, realizing early on that the only way for US or European manufacturers to stay competitive and survive in today's electronic industry is to be more efficient than their overseas counterparts. While this applies to all electronic manufacturers, contract manufacturers, by the nature of their business, are far more susceptible to price squeezes and therefore form the bulk of our clientele.

When listing their efficiency headaches, BOM preparation (commonly referred to as "scrubbing") and "quoting" (including pricing and sourcing) are usually the first two we hear from a potential customer (a free USB stick goes to whoever can name the next two). Since contract manufacturers can send out up to a dozen quotes for each order received, the time spent making them becomes a painful cost and a tool to reduce this time will have a very quick ROI. This was the logic that led us to develop our flagship product, known as "BOM Connector^TM".

Put simply, the task of BOM Connector^TM is to create what we have termed a "Golden BOM". For a BOM to be "golden" it needs to contain all information necessary to quote the project, buy the parts and build the boards. Getting this data requires linking to several potential sources - customer BOM, company ERP system, CAD design, distributor catalog, and last but certainly not least, Octopart.

Since this is an Octopart blog, I will not dwell on the first four sources, except to say that these links are built into the product and are highly automated. We have used the Octopart API substantially to utilize the capability of the site to help users find the best price and availability and give them a platform where this information can be quickly re-used for follow-up BOM revisions or new projects.

In the example below, the user has selected a manufacturer part number (MPN) ERJ-3EKF1271V from Panasonic, which was brought into the BOM via a direct link to the approved vendor list (AVL) contained in the ERP system. Using the Octopart Search option built into BOM Connector^TM, the user quickly gets a listing of all available distributors, pre-sorted according to his ranking system. This puts all preferred sources at the top of the list, where they belong. The API interface has blocked out in red any distributor which is either out of stock, requires a minimum purchase far exceeding the amount required (in this case taking into account the user's production quantity (PQ) of 50), or which cannot maintain user-specified lead-times. The results coming back from the Octopart API interface are thus organized and displayed with the best price in dark green and next-best prices in fading-to-yellow tones.

To choose a source, the user simply selects it and it is added to both the BOM and to a database for future quick-reference. The user can also choose to open the Octopart site from within BOM Connector^TM to take advantage of additional Octopart features such as opening the datasheet, viewing technical data, tracking price movements, etc.

According to Marius Schäfer, head of the Octopart implementation team: "working with the Octopart API toolkit has been a real pleasure. Th

e kit includes methods to request prices for multiple parts and returns the result in a well formatted way. This process is very fast and even info on hundreds of part is returned in seconds, meaning each single part is done in nanoseconds. The Octopart API technology works perfect, but two thing are simply great: the well-designed API structure and the very thorough documentation. We are planning to further integrate this into our database so that a complete pricing history per-company can be created in just a few mouse clicks."

Thus, the Octopart API interface allows BOM Connector^TM to satisfy the four main requirements of its users - speed, accuracy, ease-of-use and repeatability. Results are gathered and displayed in seconds, the display is sorted, filtered and presented in a graphically appealing, easy-to-use form. Using the data is a matter of a couple mouse-clicks. And finally, the data is stored in a BOM Connector^TM database for future projects and for a pricing history and "traceability". The synergy of Octopart and BOM Connector^TM is a classic example of two products making each better by working together .