The 2020 AltiumLive annual PCB Design conference may have been virtual, thanks to COVID-19, but that didn’t stop me from participating and giving a keynote focused on supply chain management for engineers.
Most engineers will tell you that they are most effective when they are able to focus on the technical parts of product design. But, in recent years, times to market have decreased, supply chain complexity has increased, and the interplays between the electrical and non-electrical parts of most products have become exceedingly complex. To meet these challenges effectively, engineers and product designers must become comfortable interleaving business, supply chain, and sourcing responsibilities into the technical conversations that they are already having with their vendors and manufacturers. I spend a lot of time focused on supply chain optimization, pricing negotiations, and program management when I’m not designing PCBs. In this talk, I will explain how significant price, performance, and timeline benefits can be realized by expanding your skill sets into these areas, and actively participating in them, alongside your colleagues who may be focused on them. I will provide specific examples of when and how interacting more closely with your component distributors and manufacturers earlier in the design process can save you time in the long run, despite it sometimes feeling like it is “distracting” from the design work at hand.
Check out the full presentation below, and if you’re itching to learn more, head over to the Altium Academy YouTube channel to watch the other presentations from AltiumLive 2020.
You can also check out the keynote addresses that I gave in 2018 and 2019!