揭开电子商务之于电子产品供应链的迷思

电子供应链中最常被误解的动态之一可能是基于网络的线上采购以及电子商务(e-commerce)所带来的影响吧！ 从十年多以前开始，由于有了网络的存在，品牌所有者开始能够直接向客户推销自己的产品，不必再由其它地方进行运输、存货以及进行管理。 如今我们知道 Amazon.com 的营运模式十分适用于消费/零售领域，它让客户能透过网络直接购买到成品。虽然电子商务在电子供应链中扮演着重要的作用，但客户营运模式并不适于搜寻、采购以及管理大量的线上零组件。 电子商务对于组件制造商如何计划与运输货物的影响，增加了电子产品供应链交易的复杂性，并使许多供应链的关系重新调整。许多制造商正致力于找到可接触到客户的最有效率方式，以及管理未经最后加工的库存。制造商策略也开始分裂成低成本量产(如外包至中国)以及多样化量产。因此，在电子产业中，经销商就得不断地改变其营运模式，以期适合于双方制造商的策略。 一般由目录经销商处理的小量、少样产品组合订单，已经从传统领域步入数字世界。拥有广泛产品组合的经销商通常得设法支持这种类型的客户，开始提供线上订购功能。在某些情况下，这意味着必须与已建置电子商务功能的网站建立合作伙伴关系，以及从各种产品库存搜寻多样化的产品。 其它经销商则发展自有的电子商务工具。即将从11月起卸下安富利公司(Avnet Inc.)董事会主席一职的前任 CEO Roy Vallee曾表示，该公司将与客户共同致力于发展电子商务等客户需要的各种方式。然而，其经销商客户并未选择在线上采购组件生产订单。 相反地，经销商开始利用线上功能来追踪客户订单、分析资料，并将这些资料用于规划未来的产品等用途。一项针对全球供应链主管所进行的调查报告《The Chief Supply Chain Officer Report 2012》作者指出： “或 许电子商务最重要的意义在于为所有公司带来了一个能与客户更直接接触的机会。对于工业或B2B品牌而言，这种业务往来的关系有助于双方迈向更深层的产品资 讯分享以及预测合作与订单效率，而不只是一种取代电话与目录服务的超强力版本。对于消费品牌而言，这种影响力则可深入订单管理与执行，并可能意味着重大的 经销通路改变。” 本文授权编译自EBN Online，版权所有，谢绝转载 本文下一页：大量订单正转移至电子商务

相关阅读：
• 分销商朝大而全的方向发展，电子商务模式仍有待观察
• 电子元器件采购的未来在电子商务
• Mouser推出“新一代产品”及“应用与技术”新站点fgbesmc

{pagination} 更多大规模的订单正转移至电子经销商。部份原因在于组件供货商推出了越来越多的产品种类。根据这份CSCO的报告强调，由于客户期待更广泛的产品上线，使得数字消费者持续增加库存单位(SKU)： “根据美国富国银行(Wells Fargo)在去年的一份投资研究报告表示，Amazon提供的品项数量比Wal-Mart.com更多80倍，显示多样化的产品条形码正迅速地增加中。” 在电子产业中，随着制造商从含铅产品转变至改用无铅组件， RoHS指令的实施也增加了供应链中的SKU 。经销商在公司中开发自有的内部辨识系统，以区别符合RoHS标准与不合格的组件。他们为符合RoHS标准的组件制作了独立的库存设施，以便与含铅组件分开处理。 在出货时，经销商必须使其组件识别系统与客户熟悉的组件型号一致。经销通路还必须提供认证文件，以确认选定的RoHS设备的确是无铅组件。该系统可使经销商 管理其它类型的复杂性，例如由组件制造商所提供的更广泛组件。过去提供完整解决方案的芯片制造商，如今已区分为专业的DSP、微处理器、内存、 FPGA、模拟、数字等专业公司。电子客户现在已拥有一个可进行选择的更广泛组件组合，而选择这些组件也同样变得更加复杂了。 对 于已经知道其需求的客户－工程师、实验室或原型产品工作室，他们都需要具有各种不同组件组合的订单──电子商务能迅速且有效地找到并完成这一订单。这些元 件的供货商也乐于让经销商处理这些订单，因为服务这些小量产品不但毫无利润也没什么效率。客户可能知道自己需要什么组件，但提供广泛的选择，意味着能够在这些选择中提供最佳解决方案。 即使组件选择范围缩小，也得考虑到其它更多的交货机制。供货商能在制造商网站通知直接出货给客 户吗？如果可以的话，供货商仓库到工厂的距离有多近？附近刚好也有经销商吗？如果有的话，经销商能提供客户所需的产量吗？大部份的电子商务模式可管理多达 十余个SKU种类，但平均一项电子物料成本(BOM)包括多达数百个SKU 。 未来，我还将进一步讨论电子商务如何管理这种复杂度及其影响。 本文授权编译自EBN Online，版权所有，谢绝转载 编译：Susan Hong 参考英文原文：Dispelling E-Commerce Myths，by Barbara Jorgensen, EBN Community Editor

相关阅读：
• 分销商朝大而全的方向发展，电子商务模式仍有待观察
• 电子元器件采购的未来在电子商务
• Mouser推出“新一代产品”及“应用与技术”新站点fgbesmc

{pagination} Dispelling E-Commerce Myths Barbara Jorgensen Possibly one of the most misunderstood dynamics in the electronics supply chain is the impact of Internet-based buying and/or e-commerce. A little more than a decade ago, brand owners became capable of selling their wares directly to customers without shipping, storing, or managing them elsewhere. What we now know is that the Amazon.com-model has worked extremely well in the consumer/retail space where customers buy finished products. While e-commerce plays a significant role in the electronics supply chain, customer business models are simply not well suited to source, purchase, and manage large volumes of components online. E-commerce has had an impact on how component manufacturers plan and ship goods, has increased the complexity of electronics supply chain transactions, and has prompted realignment in many supply chain relationships. In a previous report I noted that many manufacturers are struggling with the most effective way to reach their customers and manage unfinished inventory. Manufacturers are split between low-cost mass production -- outsourcing to China, for example -- and more variable mass customization. In electronics, distributors continue to shift their models to support both strategies. (See: Distributors Secure Role With Extra Services. ) In electronics, e-commerce has not "cut out the middleman" as many feared. Low-volume, low-mix orders, typically handled by catalog distributors, moved from paper to the digital world. Broadline distributors that have typically struggled to support this type of customer, began to provide online ordering capabilities. In some cases, this meant partnering with sites that had already set up e-commerce capabilities and sourced from a variety of inventory pools. Other distributors developed their own e-commerce tools. At the time, analysts viewed the strategy as "betting $2 on every horse." Roy Vallee, who has stepped aside as Avnet Inc.'s CEO and will retire from the chairman position in November, said the company was going to engage with its customers in all the ways customers wanted, and that included e-commerce. However, customers didn't opt to buy production orders online. Instead, distributors began to use online capabilities to track customer orders, analyze data, and use that data for planning purposes. Authors of "The Chief Supply Chain Officer Report 2012" (based on a global survey of supply chain executives) note: Perhaps the most obvious implication of eCommerce is that all companies have an opportunity to make more direct contact with their customers. For industrial or B2B brands this connection lends itself to ever deeper product information sharing, forecast collaboration and order streamlining, but is essentially just a super-powered version of the telephone-and-catalogue relationship it replaces. For consumer brands, the implications reach into order management and fulfillment and potentially mean significant changes to channels. Large-scale order fulfillment, if anything, has shifted more toward electronics distribution. Part of the reason is the increasing variety of products that component suppliers are releasing. The CSCO report noted that the effect of the digital consumer is increasing stock-keeping units (SKUs) because customers expect a wider variety online: A Wells Fargo investment research report last year claimed that Amazon offered 80 times the number of items as did Wal-Mart.com, suggesting that the bar for variety is getting higher quickly. In electronics, the implementation of RoHS also increased SKUs in the supply chain as manufacturers transitioned from leaded-products to unleaded devices -- sometimes manufacturing both. Distributors developed their own in-house identification systems to separate RoHS-compliant and non-compliant parts. They created separate bins and even facilities to store RoHS-compliant devices, which have to be treated differently than leaded devices. Upon shipment, distributors had to reconcile their component-identification systems with the part numbers that customers were familiar with. The channel also had to provide documentation to confirm designated RoHS devices were lead-free. These systems have enabled distributors to manage other types of complexities, such as a wider variety of devices now offered by component makers. Chip makers that used to provide a soup-to-nuts suite of devices have now broken into specialized units for logic, DSP, and microprocessors; memory; FPGA; analog; digital; and everything in-between. Electronics customers now have a wider variety of components to choose from, but selecting these parts has become more complex. For customers that already know what they need -- engineers, labs, or prototype houses that require just a few high-mix orders -- e-commerce fulfills orders quickly and effectively. Suppliers of these parts are happy to let distribution handle these orders because servicing low volumes -- even digitally -- is not profitable or efficient. The same dynamic applies to fulfillment orders, but for different reasons. Customers may know what components they need, but a wide array of choices means there is a "best" solution among the choices. Even when those choices are narrowed down, there is a vast array of delivery mechanisms to consider. Can suppliers drop ship to the manufacturing site? If so, how close is the supplier's warehouse to the plant? Is there a distribution warehouse closer? If so, does the distributor have the volume the customer needs? Most e-commerce models can manage those variables for one, two, or even a dozen SKUs, but an average electronics bill of material (BOM) has hundreds of SKUs. In future posts, I will look at the impact e-commerce has had on managing this level of complexity.