End-to-End Inventory Management on Sourcengine

Out of the frying pan and into the fire, that has been the state of the semiconductor supply chain over the past few years. From the 2018-2019 MLCC shortage to the 2020-2022 global semiconductor shortage and now to the chip glut, stability is few and far between. There doesn’t seem to be a very easy way to source components or deal with excess inventory once it occurs. There’s a high chance market conditions may never return to the former level of stability the global supply experienced prior to the pandemic.

The semiconductor supply chain has been experiencing consistent fluctuations over the last few years. With the introduction of new fabrication plants from the passage of domestic semiconductor manufacturing incentive programs, it's about to undergo another significant round of change.  

Managing electronic component inventory without supply chain disruptions is tedious enough. Identifying how much of which needed stock to order at a time with a supply chain that is vulnerable to a litany of things, from labor shortages to bad weather, can be difficult under normal conditions. Component obsolescence, a common occurrence within the electronic component industry, can, if not appropriately addressed, lead to production stalls, time and resource waste, and lost capital, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

While good inventory management aims to track the flow of products from a supplier through production–including ordering more stock when necessary–it is easier said than done in an industry rife with traditional processes.  

Manual processes, including procurement and market monitoring, are surprisingly common in an industry fueling digital evolution. Many original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), contract manufacturers (CMs), and electronic manufacturing service (EMS) providers rely on Excel sheets to track part offers, market conditions, manufacturer inventory, and price history. These outdated manual processes are prone to human error and slower operations.

These problems contribute to a lack of inventory, excess inventory, or worse, suspect counterfeits entering an organization’s production line. One of the best ways to avoid these problems is by using digital tools with end-to-end inventory management options. These tools reduce erroneous information, improve operations, and help increase time and cost-efficiency.  

Not all digital tools are created equally. When looking for the perfect inventory tool, one should ensure it offers three main capabilities: part procurement, bill-of-material (BOM) management, and the ability to sell product lines and excess inventory. Sourcengine has all three and more.   ‍

Sourcing Hard-to-Find Components

First, a good inventory management tool should allow users to search and locate offers for needed stock. Procurement is the first and most crucial step of the inventory management process, as such it must be prioritized by any digital inventory management technology.

Sourcengine is the leading marketplace for electronic components. With over 1 billion part offers from 3,500+ traceable and verified vendors, finding your necessary component is easy with Sourcengine’s intuitive search future. Part offers can be filtered based on user requirements such as manufacturer, lifecycle status, RoHS compliance, and exact match. Furthermore, you can compare global prices, availability, and lead times, finding the best offer through Sourcengine’s price benchmarking feature.  

More information? No problem. Sourcengine provides data sheets on millions of parts, including compliance information, parametric data, and fit-form-function (FFF) alternatives. It makes it far easier to strategize for possible component obsolescence with alternates, drop-in replacements (DIR), and functionally equivalent parts if redesigns are necessary.  

For those with long BOMs, Sourcengine’s BOM management tool, Quotengine, allows buyers to search for up to 4,000 line items at once by uploading their BOM to Quotengine. Users can then quickly add all offers to the cart or select those they prefer manually for a simple checkout process.

An essential part of procurement teams working with those in inventory management is that with Sourcengine, buyers can schedule deliveries up to a year in advance. If users cannot find an offer that fits their specifications, Sourcengine’s global team of experts can. Sending an RFQ is easy, and Sourcengine’s experts will get back to you quickly with a part offer fitting your requirements.  ‍

API and BOM Management

It’s not always easy to fit new tools into an existing digital ecosystem within an organization. While digital technology helps improve operations efficiently, using too many applications can contribute to the same problems caused by manual processes. Using applications that assist companies with their preferred systems is a far smoother option, especially for inventory management processes.  

An application programming interface (API) allows two or more applications to speak with one another. API allows various unrelated software products to integrate and interoperate with the ability to be customized to better align with an organization’s business goals.  

Specifically, Sourcengine’s API allows users to order and search for part offers on its leading e-commerce site without leaving a company’s enterprise resource planning (ERP)/material requirements planning (MRP) system. Users can access real-time market data and component information through their ERP/MRP system.

Furthermore, Sourcengine’s partnerships with other industry leaders such as Orbweaver, CalcuQuote, and Luminovo help users customize their experience depending on the data needed for their specific organization.  

Sourcengine’s API partnership with Orbweaver offers three levels of integration built off Connect: inform, advance, and custom. If you’re an EMS provider that requires traditional RFQ responses at a faster pace, Sourcengine has partnered with CalcuQuote to manage all your RFQ processes on our user-friendly dashboard. EMS providers can utilize Sourcengine’s partnership with Luminovo’s LumiQuote to streamline and expedite quoting processes.  

With Sourcengine’s integrated BOM management tool Quotengine, using Sourcengine API to monitor market trends and order stock when needed becomes simple and easy.  ‍

Selling Product Lines or Excess Electronic Components

Market shifts can occur rapidly, and after several years of high consumer electronics demand taking a steep dive, even the most well-prepared organizations can face excess electronic component inventory.  

Unneeded surplus stock within inventory management can result in additional warehouse costs to store electronic components properly. Many inventory management tools offer solutions for the front-end of the process, purchasing, and scheduling stock deliveries. Unfortunately, only some provide practical actions regarding back-end inventory management for selling and resolving challenges involving excess.  

Sourcengine, as the leading global marketplace for electronic components, does.  

For OEMs, CMs, EMS providers, and even original component manufacturers (OCMs), users can list their products or excess inventory on Sourcengine. Both processes are simple and streamlined, letting users quickly get product or excess inventory up in front of an audience of over 100,000 professional buyers with indexed and discoverable product detail pages (PDPs), making sure users’ products can be found on popular search engines like Google, Bing, and Baidu.

Companies looking to sell their excess on Sourcengine can quickly estimate the maximum return they will earn with Sourcengine’s Excess Estimator. The Excess Estimator is a part of Quotengine, letting users rapidly shift between buying stock for their BOMs and selling excess inventory that is no longer necessary.  

As an extra layer of protection to reassure buyers and prevent counterfeits from entering the global supply chain, Sourcengine subjects all parts sold through it to undergo its stringent quality management system (QMS) with ISO 9001 certification. Sourceability, Sourcengine’s parent company, maintains documentation of its adherence to all BIS/Federal standards, no matter how you choose to sell with Sourcengine. All documentation will be sent to you, the seller, or kept in our files.  

Ready to get started selling on Sourcengine? Get an estimate for your excess or kick off your sales journey here.