Altium’s head of SaaS product marketing, Justin Sears, explains how together, Octopart and Altium 365 underpin strategic, prompt and compliant procurement.
According to research by Levison Enterprises, ‘more than 70 per cent of the electronic components used in printed circuit board assembly will become obsolete before the system is even installed’.
Part obsolescence hits hardest when sourcing teams become disconnected from the electronics development process. Innovation and complexity are accelerating, whether sourcing teams buy for the automotive industry, aerospace, medical devices or other industries.
However, buyers use technology that hasn’t kept up, and they fear that old systems will delay product launches or cause them to buy sub-par components. Altium offers the Octopart electronic part search engine and Altium 365 electronics development platform. Together, they give sourcing teams the real-time intelligence they need.
Think about cost management strategically
Procurement leaders need to reduce the cost of each individual bill-of-materials (BoM), while also thinking strategically about cost efficiency across all projects–from prototype to production. This means constantly monitoring price changes, availability, distributors and end-of-life dates.
Without supply chain intelligence woven into the development process, events force reactive purchases. Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, famously wrote: “Most people think of strategy as an event, but that’s not the way the world works.” With Octopart woven into a coherent product development and procurement strategy, buyers align to ‘how the world works’.
One Octopart user describes its strategic value this way: “I have Octopart open all day, using it at least five times daily to check stock, costs, alternative packaging and datasheets. When lead times are tight, Octopart is a lifesaver, helping me quickly find alternates available for immediate procurement.”
‘Shift left’ to prepare for supply chain uncertainty
In 2023, more than 111,000 electronic parts went obsolete without a PCN number (according to Converge, an Arrow Company). Coined by software engineers, the term ‘shift left’ means starting as many tasks (like user acceptance testing) as early in the development process as possible. Octopart helps buyers act with more agility as they ‘shift left’ their purchase processes and make decisions earlier.
The following infographic shows stages where earlier supply chain visibility with Octopart and Altium 365 helps protect teams from PCB respins, rushed purchases or choosing parts with higher fraud risk.
Future of procurement is data-driven and agile
Remember the goal. Purchasers need laser-like supply chain vision that penetrates schematics, PCB designs, mechanical enclosures and PDFs to see every part.
Octopart is the electronic part search engine that gives procurement professionals laser-vision and a superb user experience. When users load their BoM to the Octopart BoM Tool, it analyzes their component selection for cost, availability and lifecycle targets. Cloud-based access to verified supplier information, compliance data and alternate parts dramatically improves users’ supply chain intelligence. Explore how Octopart and Altium 365 can make electronic purchasing teams data-driven and agile.
