Component Modification and Assembly Services

Heilind has two valued-added centers located around the country to support your value-add needs in TE Connectivity/AMP, Molex, 3M, TE Connectivity/Raychem, FCI and Panduit. The two locations perform the following services:

Use Heilind component modification services to:

• Reduce inventory levels
• Reduce dependency on long lead time factory "specials"
• Eliminate factory minimums
• Free up manufacturing resources for more mission-critical tasks

Supply Chain Management Services

The Heilind eStore is an Internet-based customer service center. It is fast and simple. On the eStore, you can:

• Check stock - by either the manufacturer's part number or your part number.
• Check pricing - by either the manufacturer's part number or your part number, including special contract pricing.
• Enter orders - to bill against either your corporate account or a credit card.
• Check order status - by your PO or part number.
• Get tracking numbers - with automatic links to UPS and FedEx tracking sites.
• Check purchase and invoice history - by your PO or part number.
• Get technical information - with automatic links by part number to manufacturer's data pages.
• Send an email to your salesperson.

Contact your Heilind salesperson to set up an eStore account.

IMRS (Inventory Material Replenishment System)

Our IMRS program is a great example of an auto-replenishment pull system. IMRS supports a variety of models including kanban, just-in-time and DOE (direct order entry) and is easy to implement. To use our IMRS program, all you need is an eStore login and Internet access. Heilind will supply the scanner, tablet and bar code labels/books. IMRS can also be customized to meet the needs and purchasing patterns of the customer.

The benefits to the customer of an IMRS program include:

• Reduces inventory
• Increases inventory turns
• Reduces stock-outs
• Reduces cycle time
• Reduces total acquisition cost
• Increases cash flow
• Reduces paper waste
• Improves order accuracy
• Reduces keying errors
• Point-of-use flexibility

In this video, Heilind's Customer Business Manager Rob Piepsny explains Heilind's new scanner/tablet IMRS program.

Push vs. Pull Replenishment Theory

Traditionally, customers have scheduled material shipments from their suppliers based on what their "plan" (typically MRP) told them they needed. The plan "pushed" material into stock in anticipation of requirements. The problem with this approach has always been that the plan is highly variable and progressively less accurate the further it looks into the future. Without careful management, following the plan often resulted in warehouses filled with too much of the wrong inventory and too little of the right inventory (with right inventory being whatever manufacturing needed that day.)

Pull systems (or kanban or auto-replenishment systems) seek to remedy this problem by changing what triggers raw material deliveries to the production floor. In pull systems, small, pre-set safety stocks are maintained on the production floor for each part included in the program. These safety stocks are typically packaged in two equal lots, each lot equal to several days' production usage.

The customer informs the supplier (by fax, phone, bar code/modem trigger, EDI) whenever a lot is broken into, and then the supplier replenishes this lot of parts within an agreed-to number of days.

Instead of MRP pushing material onto the production floor according to planned usage, production pulls material onto the floor according to actual manufacturing usage.

The diagram below illustrates the basic IMRS-based auto-replenishment process flow.

EDI

Electronic Data Interchange, or EDI, is the electronic exchange of business documents (POs, invoices, MRP, etc.) between business partners according to the ANSI X.12 standard. The goal of any EDI-trading partnership is reducing manual document processing by automating the most common business transactions between customer and supplier.

In a traditional commercial relationship, customers and suppliers expend huge administrative resources distilling, sorting, translating and communicating information in order to complete the simplest transactions. The process is costly, slow and error-filled. Additionally, the long information float contributes to longer lead times, higher levels of inventory and lower inventory turnover. A successful EDI implementation allows both partners to automate routine transactions, eliminating much of this costly, nonvalue-added paper handling.

Heilind Electronics supports virtually all standard (ANSI X.12) EDI transactions including:

810 Invoice
830 Forecast
840 Request for Quote
850 Purchase Order
855 Purchase Order Acknowledgement
856 Advanced Shipping Notification
860 Purchase Order Change
865 Purchase Order Change Acknowledgement
997 Functional Acknowledgement

The Benefits of EDI

• Improved quality due to the reduction of manual data entry (keying errors) and garbled verbal and fax communications.
• Improved speed due to routine, automatic computer-to-computer sharing of critical data between trading partners.
• Improved manufacturing and inventory performance due to more timely transmission of critical manufacturing and materials data.
• Increased productivity due to the reallocation of administrative resources away from document processing to more important analytical tasks.

Electronic File Sharing ("Pseudo" or Nontraditional EDI)

For customers who have chosen to not implement a formal EDI program, Heilind offers a broad range of other electronic file-sharing options that can provide the benefits of an EDI program without the costs and restrictions of a formal EDI setup. All that’s required to implement an electronic file-sharing program is for the customer to transmit core business documents (POs, MRP, etc.) as email attachments instead of mailing or faxing them. So long as these attachments are in standard electronic file formats (Excel, flat text file, HTML), Heilind can process them electronically.

The benefits of this generic approach to electronic file sharing are the same as with a traditional EDI program:

• Improved quality due to the reduction of manual data entry (keying errors) and garbled verbal and fax communications
• Improved speed due to routine, automatic computer-to-computer sharing of critical data between trading partners
• Improved manufacturing and inventory performance due to more timely transmission of critical manufacturing and materials data
• Increased productivity due to the reallocation of administrative resources away from document processing to more important analytical tasks

The most common and beneficial transactions to automate using this approach include:

• MRP Integration - MRP sharing is one of the best ways to ensure JIT delivery while minimizing risk and liability. Heilind supports planning only and planning with embedded releases. A full set of reports is available after each transmission.
• PO Integration – Automatic loading of your POs in Heilind’s system and follow-up by automatic email acknowledgement of your order.
• Email Shipment Notification (emailed ASNs) – — In the EDI world, an ASN (advanced ship notice) is an electronic notification from supplier to customer that a shipment has left the supplier and is on its way to the customer. Heilind can provide this same kind of notification to you automatically via email on a daily basis. Each email notification reports the PO, part number, quantity and tracking number for everything shipped to you by Heilind the previous day, allowing you to easily stay on top of the material flow into your facility.

Consignment Inventory

Consignment inventory is a variation of the auto-replenishment concept. Like a standard auto-replenishment program, material is shipped to the customer based on how it’s pulled from stock by manufacturing versus what the MRP says manufacturing is supposed to need.

As with auto replenishment, a small safety stock (typically less than two weeks' worth of material) is kept in the customer's stockroom or manufacturing floor. What is special about consignment inventory is that this safety stock is owned by Heilind, not the customer. Billing occurs upon consumption, reducing average inventory levels, outstanding payables and cycle times.

Heilind supports multiple consignment models to give you readily available material. Below is a simple consignment inventory process flow:

1. Heilind places material in the customer's stockroom in quantities agreed upon by the customer and Heilind. (Typically, this stock is equal to one to two weeks' worth of production usage.)
2. Material is withdrawn from inventory as required by stockroom or production personnel.
3. At regular intervals, the consigned inventory is counted, comparing what's there versus what should be there. This is typically done every one to two weeks in a manual program and daily within an auto-replenishment program.
4. Heilind bills the customer for any material missing from the consigned inventory. Typically, this is a consolidated invoice for everything missing from the consignment inventory that week. Pricing is negotiated upfront. All billings are made against purchase orders assigned by the customer.
5. Heilind replenishes the consignment inventory.

Other Supply Chain Services

• Reserved Inventory - Heilind will manage inventory to match your specific demands and consumption data. Stock is protected and available for your JIT release. Through MRP integration, the inventory levels will fluctuate automatically with your demand levels reducing risk and liabilities while ensuring parts are available to you when needed.
• Kitting - Heilind will take your bill of materials and package material together to provide production-ready kits. One line item/one order reduces suppliers, SKUs, inventory, inspection, transaction and acquisition costs. Kitting streamlines procurement and speeds up the manufacturing cycle.
• VMI (vendor-managed inventory) - Heilind will manage your inventory flow utilizing either MRP integration or IMRS. We will manage your procurement, inventory and warehouse functions.
• In-Plant Store - Heilind will provide an in-house specialist to support your procurement and warehouse functions.