When choosing a PCBA company to partner with, many decision makers unfortunately make the mistake of not taking into consideration whether or not they are investing in a low maintenance supplier. While they may take into account per unit assembly costs, the key to choosing the best possible PCBA company is by further investigation into quality, delivery, responsiveness and communication skills. A low mark in any one of these areas can result in unexpected fees - often compounded over time and often extremely costly.
A low maintenance supplier not only excels in each of these areas, but ultimately makes our customers’ lives easier by laying out the exact measures we take to ensure an uncomplicated PCBA process and by providing quantifiable data that will back up our claims of excellence.
How to Determine if a PCBA Company is “Low Maintenance” and Worth Partnering With?
By providing detailed (quantitative) measurements of our quality and delivery performance, MPL empowers its customers to determine for themselves whether or not our effort in these areas meets their requirements for a PCBA partner. Let’s take a look at some cost factors resulting from poor quality, delivery and communication:
What Poor Quality Means for the Customer
There is considerable customer cost associated with receiving products with quality issues. From the labor costs of customer sorting and line disruption to the premium freight costs for replacement parts, investing in poor quality PCBA service is an expensive endeavor, even if the original assembly cost was low. Avoid PCBA companies that require high maintenance due to faulty products— instead, verify the quality of their work by first obtaining an up to date RMA rate from your potential PCBA partner. At MPL, for example, our most recent RMA rate is an impressive 0.01% for the previous year.
Evaluating Impact of Late Deliveries
Even if the assembly that you receive is a high-quality result, there still may be unexpected costs if the assembly is not delivered on time. These complications include factors such as line speed reduction or line down at your facility while waiting on important parts, line changes, expediting costs, premium freight costs for replacement parts. Moreover, when you calculate the time it takes for an engineer, technician, commodity manager, or management to resolve these issues, you are losing valuable time that could be spent on more profitable projects.
If a customer fully grasps the factors that make up the total cost of a product they would be more focused on finding and working with a low-maintenance supplier like MPL, a company that can boast excellent on-time delivery rates, most recently recorded at a rate of 99.65% for the previous year.
Importance of Good Responsiveness and Communication
Lastly, a low maintenance PCBA company prioritizes responsiveness and Communication. While this is the hardest area to quantify, we can show you what a responsive and communicative supplier looks like by providing a snapshot of how MPL does business.
At the heart of the MPL mission is customer service. Delayed responses and unnecessary wait times will result in costly mistakes throughout the project lifecycle. One area where timeliness and responsiveness is particularly crucial is material procurement. Poor communication can result in avoidable, massive lead times. In some cases, even a slight time delay can be the difference between you getting or not getting the components necessary to complete the finished product on order. As supply chains continue to be extremely volatile, anything less than exceptional responsiveness, whether with customers or material sources, is not an option.
MPL prides itself on going the extra mile in all areas - specifically when it comes to responsiveness. If given the opportunity to quote, you will realize this immediately in dealings with our Documentation and Material Procurement teams. All staff maintain the same dedication to customer service which allows us the ability to be a low-maintenance supplier of PCBA’s.
Invest in a Low Maintenance Supplier to Receive the Best Total Cost Possible
With the goal of helping our clients and potential customers understand the importance of these key cost factors that ultimately make up the total cost of a product, MPL not only commits itself to being a low-maintenance supplier, but also is committed to being transparent with our data. We set our customers up for success, enabling anyone to easily make informed decisions when choosing a PCBA company to work alongside.
