How To Overcome Multiple Supply Bases For A Streamlined Process
Too many suppliers for materials and processes led a leading U.S. manufacturer of infrastructure and flow control products and services straight to Leonhardt. With the ultimate goal of improving product offering of residential meters for their utility customers, they needed a contract manufacturing solution that could take the product from design through production and final packaging.
Enter Leonhardt. With its demonstrated knowledge of diverse materials, manufacturing processes and cellular manufacturing, Leonhardt was top choice to take on the project.
The Challenge:
The water service company was struggling to coordinate the combination of materials and processes required to produce a new water meter with an antenna that increased both range and durability. The various manufacturing disciplines that had to be considered included:
- Plastic injection moldings
- Precision stampings
- Exotic materials
- Machining
- Robotic welding
- Packaging
- Prototype development
- Testing
The Solution:
With Leonhardt’s experience as a tier one supplier, the company was able to utilize both internal processes and supply base to develop a complete product shipped from the Hanover, Pennsylvania facility. Not only did Leonhardt manage the external suppliers, both the customer’s engineering lead and the RF engineering subcontractor reported through Leonhardt. As a contract manufacturer, Leonhardt knows how to take charge of a program and push it through the finish line.
One company executive commented that it set a new paradigm for how products would be developed in the future.
With Leonhardt’s commitment and dedication to the project, the product met all the performance goals and there are now over 20,000 thousand of these meters in water pits all over the United States.
How can you overcome a situation like this?
- Early involvement in design support helped this water products customer develop a specific product.
- Leonhardt’s coordination of a variety of suppliers in multiple processes helped the team “design for manufacturability.”
- The willingness to invest capital in a new dedicated robotic weld cell at Leonhardt assured that the product was manufactured in a way that was globally competitive in both quality and cost.
- Partnering with Leonhardt from design through to manufacturing launch can reduce supply base – in this case it went from a half dozen companies down to one.
Get more information on how to better manage your supply chain.