Month: May 2010

Sound the Trumpets

I am not a strong proponent of bragging about accomplishments, but we recently had a success here at PC Systems that I would really like to share with you.

Not long ago, we received a call from a customer who knew what they needed an interconnect to do, but had no real idea on how to do it. They were pointed to our website via a colleague, saw a picture of a part they thought would work (it was a past prototype), and they gave us a call.

After a 10 minute conversation on the phone they asked if they could come to our facility. Our response was of course as we started to talk about our schedule for the next few weeks, but they promptly told us they would be there first thing in the morning. We immediately scrambled, creating prototypes and discussing design options.

The customer arrived around 10AM the next morning and we immediately went to the conference room. Within an hour we had a whiteboard drawing of an assembly. It would consist of 2 simple harnesses to be run on our automated leadmakerand one custom overmolded assembly. I won’t get into detail other than to say it was an injection overmold, with two custom components. We discussed project timing and quickly realized we were behind schedule. The customer needed final parts in 8 weeks. This would include designing the custom components, bringing a new supplier on board for one of the custom components (in Europe) and design and manufacture of a injection mold tool. We committed and the customer left for home. I am sure they had an uneasy feeling regarding how we would meet their timing.

By the end of the day we had formal drawings and within 3 days we had signoff from the customer’s customer (OEM). We did this by interacting directly with the customer’s customer for signoff, copying our customer, in an effort to eliminate delay from a middle man.

Now it was time for our supply chain to show us what they could do. Please keep in mind this was a very small order in the context of what our suppliers normally produce. We pride ourselves in developing partnerships with our suppliers where size of the order doesn’t dictate priority. They delivered.

I also want to say that our tool shop is a class act. Capitalizing on the decrease in powdered metal industry in our area, we have found a very competent shop with top of the line equipment who can produce tooling at a reasonable cost and provide true value for our customers. They helped alleviate some of our time constraint by providing design insight as our Engineering staff developed drawings for the part and tooling.

We were able to get our custom component manufacturers online very quickly and to make a long story short, we made our deadline. We ship the parts today.

We shipped custom overmolded parts in 8 weeks at no other customer’s expense. We did it without charging a single expedite fee and without cutting a single corner. All the credit in the world goes to our supply chain and the staff at PC Systems that supports them. Also, to the customer, who was responsive when they needed to be, and also hands off when they needed to be.

Are we proud? Absolutely. Are we surprised? Absolutely not. Here at PC Systems, every customer is truly important to us. We cannot afford to put anyone on the back burner because they are a small account or do not represent high growth potential.

If you are a consumer of electrical interconnects, I challenge you to let us solve your next design problem. If you want to know more about PC Systems and what we do, please take a look at our website here: https://pcsridgway.com/