ASR Supply Chain Management Support Services

ASR provides a unique range of services tailored specifically to the needs of our clients to analyze/develop and improve all functions of the supply chain from initial product design to final product installation and use.  As a representative of the client, ASR utilizes its experience and expertise to plan, locate, qualify and monitor the best vendors/suppliers in the world to meet the customers’ specific requirements.

ASR customers benefit from ASR's twenty (20) years of hands-on management experience as well as a staff of supply chain professionals available to support our clients in all states of the United States as well as forty (40) countries overseas.  ASR utilizes modern technology to provide its clients with a full range of global services designed to facilitate cost effective supply chain management and technical support services.

ASR supply chain services include:

  • Auditing / Inspection / Testing
  • Warehousing / Distribution / Kitting
  • Conduct and analyze market segmentation
  • Develop supplier relationships
  • Two-way customer-supplier communications and cooperation
  • Ensure contracts or purchase orders include appropriate quality requirements
  • Perform supplier assessments and identify risks
  • Monitor corrective action plans and approve closure as required
  • Design metrics to represent progress and highlight problems
  • Ensure calibration of acceptance equipment
  • Ensure certifications of personnel
  • Promote optimum time to market

ASR's core competencies include extensive knowledge and experience in:

  • ASR has a global infrastructure in place (developed over 20 years) to support the full range of SCM services
  • ASR offers SCM services to government and commercial customers
  • ASR leverages its pool of 32,000+ on-call global professionals to provide “touch points” using local resources.  This pool of experienced and qualified local resources gives ASR a unique advantage.
  • Strategic development for the implementation of supply chain strategy
  • Successfully managing long-term programs for transformational change
  • Evaluating vendor/suppliers capabilities and capacities in the industrial and commercial industries
  • Using world-class quality, outsourcing and supplier management methodologies
  • Execution of quality, outsourcing and supplier management processes
  • Determining end-user satisfaction during frequent surveys assuring objectivity and validity

ASR’s experience and expertise in supplier quality assurance and inspection using local resources ensures that the customers get only the quality parts / product with the required specifications

Supply Chain Management Flow

Suppliers

Suppliers

Transportation

Warehousing

Kitting

Distribution

Product →

Oversight & Supplier Management→

Moving →

Storage →

Pre-Assemble / Consolidate →

Direct to Customer →

 Supplier Oversight and Management

Supplier management is long-term program management initiative for all aspects of supplier management and outsourcing.  ASR will help ensure your success through your network of key vendors/suppliers and business partners.  ASR will assess your total supply base, identify opportunities for cost savings and quality improvement, clarify needs and requirements between you and your vendors/suppliers, negotiate volume discounts, and sign contracts that minimize risk.  ASR will then work with your vendors/suppliers, closely monitoring their performance, and help identify and implement high-payback improvements.  ASR can also help you to make better “make vs. buy” outsourcing decisions by assessing your strategic needs and core competencies, identifying high capability business partners, evaluating benefits and risks, contracting, managing change, and ensuring future success.

Supplier Management Services offered by ASR include:

  • Supplier development & compliance
  • Supplier identification
  • Supplier evaluation / assessment
  • Supplier compliance with contract requirements
  • Materials and equipment procurement and expediting
  • Evaluation of suppliers plans
  • Evaluation of supplier manufacturing processes
  • Inspection of supplier produces product
  • In-process tests, inspection, surveillance
  • Supplier management – monitoring and assessing supplier performance
  • Supplier quality audits
  • Supplier performance improvement
  • Supplier survey
  • Lean Six Sigma
  • Product qualification

Supplier Oversight Services include:

  • Technical compliance
  • Source inspection
  • First Article Testing
  • Expediting
  • Pre-delivery / shipment inspection
  • Supplier surveillance
  • Product / Process development oversight
  • Reliability studies
  • Safety assurance
  • Corrective Action Reviews / Implementation
  • Verification of compliance
  • Qualification of processes

Quality Engineering

A goal of supplier quality assurance is to continuously improve the quality, reduce the time to produce each product, and reduce the part rejection rate. ASR approaches this goal by recommending programs such as Statistical Process Control (SPC) with corrective action plans to prevent past discrepancies, analysis of the design for ease of manufacture and increase the process yield.  We also identify manufacturing bottlenecks, improve production flow, and observe set-ups to reduce time. This is all done within the Total Quality Management (TQM) concept.  This is a concept actively promulgated, which states that “Quality” is a responsibility of everyone in an organization.  In simple terms, it means doing “right things right” and it is the responsibility of everyone, and every department, not only those actively involved in quality assurance.

Audits

Trained and certified quality assurance specialists conduct supplier quality system audits to assess the capability of the supplier's quality system to meet contractual requirements. Any corrective action on deficiencies must be completed for a supplier to be maintained on the ASR approved supplier list. When a higher level of specialized review is required because of the value and/or complexity of a purchased item, a team of appropriate technical and business specialists may conduct a survey prior to release of the purchase order or contract. This review evaluates the supplier's facilities, business system, and management capabilities, as well as specific technical areas.

Surveys

Our unique supplier survey service can significantly save you the cost of controlling your critical suppliers.  When we schedule visits to your suppliers, we can combine them with visits for other companies.  This allows us to visit several suppliers while we are in an area.  Occasionally we may have a supplier scheduled for more than client. In any case our cost for visiting your suppliers is a lot less than it would cost your company to make the same visit.

Inspection & Testing

Inspection and testing can be conducted when purchased materials are received, at significant stages of production, and prior to shipping finished products. The objective of inspections and testing is to verify conformance with specified requirements.  Materials and products are prevented from being used or shipped until the required inspections are completed. Records of inspections are established and maintained as evidence that products comply with stated requirements.

Production

ASR is an innovative company with a commitment to excellence that is achieved by understanding customer requirements and bringing together the required skilled professionals in collaboration to meet manufacturing objectives. ASR aspires to be the leading provider of innovative support services to the manufacturing community.  ASR supports production readiness by tracking from concept selection through start of production and into the continuous improvement phase of your company.   ASR can aid in improving your quality, cost, delivery, safety and the bottom line.

Field Engineering / Support

ASR provides a wide range of equipment support services at locations around the world. Our support of electronics systems includes systems engineering and integration; modernization and upgrade, reverse engineering, and failure trend analysis; hardware and software maintenance; and command and control. We develop test plans and procedures, maintain test indices, and test and check out systems in all environments; design fabricate, and assemble items associated with product alterations and field changes; and provide factory acceptance testing and post-installation performance testing.

 Logistics Support:

  • Engineering project management
  • Process and product development and improvement
  • Test plans and procedures development and product testing
  • Configuration management system development and implementation
  • Unified engineering database development and management
  • Safety programs, hazard analysis and accident investigations
  • Documentation control system development and management
  • Integrated Logistics Support (ILS) program planning management
  • Design reviews and technical interchange meetings
  • Evaluate engineering analyses
  • Reliability/Maintainability analysis 
  • Risk assessment and control
  • Facilities management
  • Supply chain management
  • Logistics and maintenance technologies for asset visibility
  • E-commerce that support physical logistics processes

 Warehousing / Storage:

  • Forecasts of inventory requirements based on product sales and manufacturing schedules
  • Warehouse management practices and processes & reengineering
  • Warehouse layout and design for rapid product input and removal
  • Material equipment handling design and implementation
  • Database of material handling equipment and suppliers
  • Maximize Return-On-Assets (ROA) or Economic Value Added (EVA) with simultaneous capacity planning, inventory planning, and rough-cut production scheduling
  • Continuous inventory monitoring and periodic audits to verify quantities and locations
  • Evaluation of preparation of products and materials for inventory storage
  • Provide customer product inventory levels to supplies
  • Information used to alert suppliers of upcoming orders for restocking
  • State of the art SCM/Warehousing Information Systems expertise including: Oracle, i2, Logility, SAP, SAS, Ariba, Manugistics, Great Plains, Sage.

Kitting / Distribution

  • Decrease or eliminate excess inventory - The entire product can be inventoried at an ASR customer facility
  • Streamline customer supplier base – Giving customer more buying power
  • Increased efficiency - Free up valuable sourcing and expediting time while reducing  time to market
  • Reduce kitting - related expenses
  • Elimination of duplicate inventories – ASR handles the inventory
  • Greater opportunities to customize products for the customers
  • Significant reduction in transportation and handling costs when all components are stored and kitted within a common warehouse
  • Efficient kitting process/technologies in place to facilitate ease of manufacturing and provide Just-In-Time (JIT) effectively