Semiconductor Industry

U.P.PRO's Case Study

Quick Facts

Working with us since: 2015

Industry: Semiconductor

Main Challenge:
Improving inventory management efficiency

The need

A large global semiconductor manufacturer confronted very complex inventory management and supply chain challenges. Due to market competitiveness, suppliers have relocated their repair facilities to low cost geographies, making the reverse logistics and the management of repair solutions a very complex, cross borders, currencies, long distance operation with longer lead time and any disruptions.

The manufacturer size and global spread, together with the diversified supply base, created many inefficiencies and waste, either due to excess and dead inventory, or shortage in critical components for the factory operation that drove expensive contingency workaround: usages of new parts instead of repairing, expensive shipping routes, etc.

Approach

When stepping into a new work environment, we invest a majority of the initial time in learning the current status and identifying the areas where we see inefficiencies. We study the customer’s parameters for improvement and then together we design the overall supply chain at the most cost- effective method, optimizing all components, from both operational and financial aspects, to ensure both availability and affordability. The reverse logistics and repair loop management has required a specific tool to be designed in order to integrate the inventory available on hand, the inventory that are at supplier in the repair process, and to design the best logistics route to consolidate shipments and transition truck loads across Europe.

The Result

We designed a unique model that ensures availability, prioritizing the cheaper repair option, managing the complete RMA (return merchandise authorization) and reverse logistics while balancing the availability of both the new and repair supply chains.

The global semiconductor manufacturer lowered its expenses and saved overall costs and working time.

That model had brought us to the highest scores in the two parameters measured by our customer: availability of parts in stock and affordability of the supply chain, delivering year to year cost savings and efficiencies.