Continuing to invest in supply chain optimization, the Coghlin Companies announced that the strategic supply chain summit held earlier this year with Tier 1 suppliers are yielding returns for customers. The resulting progress in communication channels and modifications to Materials Requirements Planning feeds allowed Coghlin Companies to improve inventory, cost management and design for manufacturing to ensure customer competitiveness. Coghlin also collaborated with their key fabrication suppliers to optimize Bill of Materials (BOM) structures furthering Coghlin’s implementation of Kanban on sub-assemblies with their major customers.
“The continual alignment of our supply base with our customer requirements allows for proactive planning of capacity and resources and supply chain optimization,” said Vice President of Supply Chain Scott Johnson. “Seeing the immediate impact this summit had on our supply chain and how we are able to pass time and cost savings on to our customers, we plan to invest in a yearly strategic meeting with our key suppliers.”
The strategic summit, held last spring, was designed to further align company goals with supply chain objectives. The Coghlin Companies Tier 1 Supplier program establishes metrics and outlines incentives for top suppliers. In return, Coghlin Companies offers a tight timeline for return on quotes, openness to all bids, and visibility to forecast data. Coghlin expects implementation of Supplier Managed Inventory will show a marked improvement in the fourth quarter.
“Coghlin’s supply chain summit was a valuable session and incredibly focused on best practices in the industry. It gave us a chance to strengthen and build upon our supplier/customer relationship while discussing challenges and opportunities for supply chain optimization face-to-face,” said Steve Vecchiarelli, Vice President of Supply Chain Solutions for Digi-Key Corporation. “We look forward to implementing many of the ideas that we took away from the summit.”