November 19th, 2009 by Reg Gustafson

Companies serious about Speed to Market require good prototype and short run suppliers to support the effort. Production suppliers have a production mindset and are geared for production; it is difficult to cross the boundaries between the prototype and production worlds. Clinkenbeard has streamlined the prototyping process, from initial contact for quotation to shipping and tracking the package to your door. We eat sleep breathe the flexibility necessary to make things happen quickly. This includes taking HOT orders which change our personal and work schedules daily, implementing engineering changes throughout our business and manufacturing processes, and finding a way to get parts to your door Monday morning when they were just finished Sunday night. Believe it or not, we were just discussing parts which will be done this Sunday night, and need to take a trip to be delivered by 7AM Monday morning 4 states away. We are often involved in projects which Clinkenbeard is the dual source – to be sure that our customer has parts one way or another. Dual sourcing parts is an expensive insurance policy; companies who engage in this type of activity are very serious about Speed to Market.

September 15th, 2009 by Reg Gustafson

Hurdles which prevent speed to market; purchasing requisition and fund allocation.

At Clinkenbeard we turn requests for quotation around in 24 hours or less. As we go about our daily business quoting work for customers, it is not difficult to identify hurdles which can prevent successful speed to market during this stage in the process.
(Indeed, the whole process must be streamlined to eliminate bottlenecks which stall the process of prototype part procurement. One of those potential bottlenecks we will address now.)

One common reason for delay in this process comes during the stage of obtaining “signatures” or approval for funds to purchase initial prototype hardware. As we make follow-up calls to check status on recent quotations, we speak with purchasing agents who have spent weeks to obtain purchase requisitions and approval to spend funds – only to find the process stymied at this stage in the development.

The purchasing agent then informs the supplier that the quoted delivery date must still be maintained, in spite of the two weeks spent obtaining authorization to spend funds. At this point, stress levels are high and relationships can be damaged. Contingency plans must be put in place to prevent or address these types of internal delays so that the authorization process can be expedited, just as the rest of the process is expedited to procure prototypes quickly.