Do you spend days tallying parts during an annual inventory count? Are you shutting down your shop floor for days just to get decent counts? If so, there's an alternative inventory management method that will eliminate the need to shut down production and also deliver better results.

This alternative method is known as cycle counting, and whether you’re a global manufacturer or a privately held company, you may stand to benefit from it. In fact, at RBB we've experienced numerous benefits since we've started to cycle count inventory. Most Importantly, cycle count allows RBB to provide more reliable scheduling and delivery to our clients.

RBB’s whitepaper on how small batch electronics affects the OEM-CM relationship

Very often OEM’s struggle to effectively manage large portfolios of small batches of custom electronic assemblies. That’s why I tackled the topic in the Whitepaper, “Market Dynamics facing OEM’s with Large Portfolios of Ongoing Small Batches.”

For over 40 years, RBB has existed to move heaven and earth to get our recurring small batch customers what they need, when they need it.

On last Wednesday’s blog, I outlined the similarities between really strong business systems and really great chili. (For those of you who missed the post, find my world famous chili recipe here.) Today, I focus on how to build out really great business system.

At RBB, we pride ourselves on being trusted partners to our customers. By building solid customer relationships, we’ve learned the attributes our customers value in an outsourcing partner.

“Yeah, we do that.” Most electronic contract manufacturers (CM’s) have designed their businesses to say this, regardless of the need. Visit virtually any CM’s website or talk to their salespeople. You will likely encounter:

I get a lot of phone calls from entrepreneurs and business owners who are developing a product that has some kind of electronic component. They’re often looking for a new partner to produce parts of the product - or even the entire thing - and are sometimes new to navigating the ways of electronic contract manufacturing.

Probing the Soil

We record the calls that come in through our website’s toll-free number so that we know we are handling them properly. Occasionally a call comes in that gets the CEO’s attention…