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Recruitment, Reports and Resources
News Release from: Beganto | Subject: BeON
Edited by the Electronicstalk Editorial
Team on 05 October 2005
Online service promises faster access to
samples
Distribution's role in component sampling is expected to grow thanks to a new online sampling application, says Beganto CEO Sunil Grover.
Media serving the electronics engineering and manufacturing community tend to focus on one of two editorial directions Some concentrate on news of products and technology
This article was originally published on Electronicstalk on 28 Nov 2005 at 8.00am (UK)
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Others focus on issues of the channel: the globalisation of distribution; the consolidation as the whales continue to swallow the dolphins (and the minnows try to re-invent themselves to survive in the murky pond); about the impact of 3PL (third-party logistics), RoHS and end of life issues; how distributors are working - or not working - with the CEM and EMS sector; and a recurrent theme over the past decade or more, shortened product life spans and resultant time-to-market pressures.
One aspect of time-to-market pressures that gets relatively little media attention, but is nonetheless a topic that engages most design engineers at some point or other, is timely access to design samples.
Providing someone a sample of a component, whether it's worth one dollar or fifty, would seem to be a no-brainer when you look at the potential of selling that engineer's company a gazillion of them if you get the design win.
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Nonetheless it's a brutal fact that there is no industry standard for sample management, and relatively few component manufacturers have fully exploited the role of the distributor in component sampling.
At the risk of vastly over-simplifying, our experience as the operators of www.needasample.com, buttressed by research we conducted among engineers at the Embedded Systems Conference in March in San Francisco, suggests three roles, and a process dominated by three distributors.
First, engineers buy component samples from distributors to complete their designs.
Secondly, distributors give component samples to engineers, as a way of getting "a leg up" on a quantity order if the project moves to volume production.
Thirdly, distributors provide fulfillment services on component requests, including requests that were made directly to the manufacturer, and requests that were made to other distributors whose business models aren't built for handling onesy-twosy orders.
Our survey at ESC indicated that just over 10% of engineers who request samples start at the distributor level, typically with one of the big three catalogue distributors - DigiKey, Mouser or Newark-in-One.
(The survey didn't ask, and we have no way to quantify, the number of samples that are actually delivered by distributors as anonymous surrogates for their vendors).
Three times that number, about a third of the engineers who filled out our ESC questionnaire, start their sample search with the local rep.
And more than half ask for samples from the individual vendors, typically starting the request process online.
Whether the sample request is addressed first to the manufacturer, the rep, or the distributor, more than half of the engineers requesting samples expect to get them free - and getting them free is a factor in the choice of where to order samples (and thus whose component to design in) for 40% of the people we queried.
About a quarter of our respondents say they pay for samples about half the time, 12% pay often and 3% pay always.
Common sense tells us that engineers ask the manufacturer or the rep for the sample part they need, in order to maximise their options - asking the distributor first limits them to the brands that a given distributor stocks.
Maximising the options wins out over the nuisance (and the engineers tell us it is a nuisance) of navigating multiple websites to make their requests.
Other problems that minimise the distributor's role are the need for real-time feedback on sample availability, difficulty in finding product information and in receiving budgetary pricing, and (for a small percentage) not having the budget to pay for samples.
Perhaps most important is manufacturer inertia and failure to implement an efficient programme for sample management.
These are all factors that can be overcome, as manufacturers recognise the implications of the problem (which extends to giving appropriate credit to reps and distributors for their roles in creating a design win) and particularly as they embrace the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of involving distributors in the sampling processes.
That's why we at Beganto have established a relationship with Mouser through which manufacturers can outsource sample fulfillment, even if another distributor is likely to win the ultimate production order.
This arrangement is an augmentation of the Beganto Open Network (BeON), a free service to engineers, reps and distributors, that facilitates batch processing of multiple line item samples, and lets one order record be shared among customer, rep, and fulfillment.
The two commitments to participate in the no-charge service are to register, and to agree to report project progress.
(Costs are borne by component manufacturers, who feel they are more than repaid by the ability to manage their sampling system better, leading to more design wins).
Samples from more than 1000 companies can currently be supplied.
For a product to be processed and a request fulfilled, the component must either be produced by a BeON member manufacturer, or stocked by a member distributor.
Once enrolled, it's not only feasible but easy for an engineer to invite his favourite distributor into the sampling process, even when he/she starts with the manufacturer or the rep.
Engineers don't have to worry about sending the sample request to the right person or even the right company, nor about following up - all steps are handled automatically.
The fully automated programme starts when the BeON member engineer evaluating components clicks a NeedaSample button, in any of a variety of places: the Beganto website or the NeedaSample site, or on that of a participating rep, distributor, component manufacturer, or a co-operating publication.
Despite its newness, over 20,000 people have used the programme to get the samples they need - and that's a number that will increase exponentially as more engineers, reps and distributors take advantage of the no-charge online software application.
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