Component Modification and Assembly Services

Heilind has value added centers across North America and Hong Kong to support your value-add needs in TE Connectivity/AMP, Molex, 3M, TE Connectivity/Raychem, FCI and Panduit, performing the following services:

Use Heilind component modification services to:

• Reduce inventory levels.
• Reduce dependency on long lead time factory 'specials'.
• Eliminate factory minimums.
• Free-up manufacturing resources for more mission-critical tasks.

Supply Chain Management Services

The Heilind Estore is an Internet-based customer service center. It is fast and simple. On the Estore, you can:

• Check stock - by either the manufacturer's part number or your part number.
• Check pricing - by either the manufacturer's part number or your part number, including special contract pricing.
• Enter orders - to bill against either your corporate account or a credit card.
• Check order status - by your PO or part number.
• Get tracking numbers - with automatic links to UPS and FedEx tracking sites.
• Check purchase and invoice history - by your PO or part number.
• Get technical information - with automatic links by part number to manufacturer's data pages.
• Send an email to your Salesperson.

Contact your Heilind Salesperson to set up an Estore account.

IMRS (Inventory Material Replenishment System)

A Percon Scanner

Our IMRS program offers many auto-replenishment solutions utilizing bar codes or Estore. IMRS supports a variety of models including breadman, consignment, DOE (Direct Order Entry), Kanban, VMI (Vendor Managed Inventory) and Min-Max. The benefits to the customer of an IMRS program include:

• Reduced inventory and scrap exposure.
• Increased turns & material velocity.
• Increased manufacturing flexibility.
• Improved quality.
• Reduced cycle time.
• Reduced stock outs.
• Reduced supplier base.
• Reduced administrative costs:
• Purchasing
• Materials Management
• Warehouse
• Manufacturing
• Accounting
• MIS

"Push" VS. "Pull" Replenishment Theory

Traditionally, customers have scheduled material shipments from their suppliers based on what their "plan" (typically MRP) told them they needed. The plan "pushed" material into stock in anticipation of requirements. The problem with this approach has always been that the plan is highly variable and progressively less accurate the further into the future it looks. Without careful management, following the plan often resulted in warehouses filled with too much wrong inventory and too little right inventory (right inventory being whatever manufacturing needed today.)

Pull systems (or Kan-ban or auto-replenishment systems) seek to remedy this problem by changing what triggers raw material deliveries to the production floor. In pull systems, small, pre-set safety stocks are maintained on the production floor for each part included in the program. These safety stocks are typically packaged in two equal lots, each lot equal to several days' production usage.

The customer informs the supplier (by fax, phone, bar code/modem trigger, EDI) whenever a lot is broken into; the supplier replenishes this lot of parts within an agreed-to number of days.

Instead of MRP pushing material onto the production floor according to planned usage, production pulls material onto the floor according to actual manufacturing usage.

The diagram below illustrates the basic IMRS-based auto-replenishment process flow.

EDI

Electronic Data Interchange, or "EDI", is the electronic exchange of business documents (POs, invoices, MRP, etc.) between business partners according to the ANSI X.12 standard. The goal of any EDI trading partnership is reducing manual document processing by automating the most common business transactions between customer & supplier.

In a traditional commercial relationship, customer and supplier together expend huge administrative resources distilling, sorting, translating, and communicating information in order to complete the simplest, most routine transactions. The process is costly, slow and error-filled. Additionally, the long information float contributes to longer lead times, higher levels of inventory and lower inventory turnover. A successful EDI implementation allows both partners to automate routine transactions, eliminating much of this costly, non-value added paper-handling.

Heilind Electronics supports virtually all standard (ANSI X.12) EDI transactions including:

810 Invoice
830 Forecast
840 Request for Quote
850 Purchase Order
855 Purchase Order Acknowledgement
856 Advanced Shipping Notification
860 Purchase Order Change
865 Purchase Order Change Acknowledgement
997 Functional Acknowledgement

The Benefits of EDI

• Improved quality due to the reduction of manual data entry (keying errors) and garbled verbal and fax communications.
• Improved speed due to routine, automatic computer-to-computer sharing of critical data between trading partners.
• Improved manufacturing and inventory performance due to more timely transmission of critical manufacturing and materials data.
• Increased productivity due to the reallocation of administrative resources away-from document processing to more important analytical tasks.

Electronic File Sharing ("Pseudo" or Non-Traditional EDI)

For customers who have chosen to not implement a formal EDI program, Heilind offers a broad range of other electronic file-sharing options that can provide the benefits of an EDI program without the costs and restrictions of a formal EDI set up. All that's required to implement an electronic file sharing program is for the customer to transmit core business documents (POs, MRP, etc.) as email attachments instead of mailing or faxing them. So long as these attachments are in standard electronic file formats (Excel, flat text file, HTML), Heilind can process them electronically.

The benefits of this generic approach to electronic file sharing are the same as with a traditional EDI program:

• Improved quality due to the reduction of manual data entry (keying errors) and garbled verbal and fax communications.
• Improved speed due to routine, automatic computer-to-computer sharing of critical data between trading partners.
• Improved manufacturing and inventory performance due to more timely transmission of critical manufacturing and materials data.
• Increased productivity due to the reallocation of administrative resources away-from document processing to more important analytical tasks.

The most common and beneficial transactions to automate using this approach include:

• MRP Integration - MRP sharing is one of the best ways to insure JIT delivery while minimizing risk and liability. Heilind supports both planning-only and planning with embedded releases. A full set of reports is available after each transmission.
• PO Integration - Automatic loading of your PO's in Heilind's system, less the time, hassles, communication errors and keying errors of a manual process; followed up by automatic email acknowledgement of your order.
• Email Shipment Notification (emailed ASNs) - In the EDI world an ASN (Advanced Ship Notice) is an electronic notification from supplier to customer that a shipment has left the supplier and is on its way to the customer. Heilind can provide this same kind of notification to you automatically via email on a daily basis. Each email notification reports the PO, part number, quantity and tracking number for everything shipped to you by Heilind the previous day, allowing you to easily stay on top of the material flow into your facility.

Consignment Inventory

Consignment inventory is a variation of the auto replenishment concept. Like a standard auto replenishment program, material is shipped to the customer based on how it's pulled from stock by manufacturing verses what the MRP says manufacturing is supposed to need.

As with auto replenishment, a small safety stock (typically less than 2 week's worth of material) is kept in the customer's stockroom or manufacturing floor. What is special about consignment inventory is that this safety stock is owned by Heilind, not the customer. Billing occurs upon consumption, reducing average inventory levels, outstanding payables and cycle times; our stock, your facility.

Heilind supports multiple consignment models to give you readily available material. Below is a simple consignment inventory process flow:

1. Heilind places material in the customer's stockroom in quantities agreed-upon by the customer and Heilind. (Typically, this stock is equal to 1-2 week's worth of production usage.)
2. Material is withdrawn from inventory as required by stockroom or production personnel.
3. At regular intervals the consigned inventory is counted, comparing what's there vs. what should be there. This is typically done every 1-2 weeks in a manual program and daily within an automated auto replenishment program.
4. Heilind bills the customer for any material missing from the consigned inventory. Typically, this is a consolidated invoice for everything missing from the consignment inventory that week. Pricing is negotiated up-front. All billings are made against purchase orders assigned by the customer.
5. Heilind replenishes the consignment inventory.

Other Supply Chain Services

• Reserved Inventory - Heilind will manage inventory to match your specific demands and consumption data. Stock is protected and available for your JIT release. Through MRP integration, the inventory levels will fluctuate automatically with your demand levels reducing risk and liabilities while insuring parts are available to you when needed.
• Kitting - Heilind will take your bill of materials and package material together to provide production ready kits. One line item, one order reduces suppliers, SKU's, inventory, inspection, transaction, and acquisition costs. Kitting streamlines procurement, and speeds up the manufacturing cycle.
• VMI (Vendor Managed Inventory) - Heilind will manage your inventory flow utilizing either MRP integration or IMRS. We will manage your procurement, inventory, and warehouse functions.
• In Plant Store - Heilind will provide an in-house specialist to support your procurement and warehouse functions.