Q&As from December’s Strategic Procurement: A Fireside Chat

Several great questions came through during DigiKey’s live webinar hosted this past December. We want to take the opportunity to share the wealth of knowledge that came from the thought-provoking questions asked by you, our partners, and our customers. If you haven’t had the chance to watch the webinar (Strategic Procurement: A Live Fireside Chat), it is available on demand by registering here: https://event.on24.com/wcc/r/3525679/145C86BDF0554793F001F57E80264776. Let’s look at some of the questions asked and provide DigiKey’s best answers. (Questions may be edited for length or clarity.)

How far out do you think this supply dearth will last? Thru end of 2022? 2023?

Although there may still be challenges ahead of us, we believe orders will start to return to more realistic levels in the second half of 2022 as customers find more breathing room.

Even though supply chain challenges were rampant throughout the industry in 2020 and 2021, DigiKey was able to forecast this shortage well in advance. We always keep a close eye on global design activities in the engineering community and noticed an uptick in activities throughout 2019. This, in addition to the high volume of new product introduction and design starts DigiKey was supporting, triggered our procurement team to ramp up our purchasing during the second half of 2019 and in early 2020. DigiKey started to schedule orders through the end of 2021 to give the suppliers’ factories as much visibility as possible into future needs.

Can you speak to the onshoring of Semiconductor facilities being built in the USA?

After the global supply chain struggles of the past year, DigiKey supports suppliers diversifying where they manufacture semiconductors, including in North America, to help to more equally distribute manufacturing globally. And now more than ever, it’s important to understand where suppliers’ foundries are located and that they have versatile and flexible capabilities to manufacture components.

What product categories have you seen getting better or worse in terms of lead time/availability?

Lead times by categories vary greatly. At a glance, DigiKey has a lead time trends tool you can reference online if you are a registered user. When logged in, go to the dropdown menu to find "Lead Time Trends" and you will see two main tabs for the monthly trends. The first is "Lead Times by Product Class" and the second tab is "Lead Times by Supplier". Listed is both the average lead time in weeks and a general increase, decrease, or stable trend arrow.

We are interested in automating processes between our ERP and DigiKey. Where do we start?

If you have an Assigned Account representative, they are the best place to start discussing your automation. If you are not assigned to one, our B2B Connectivity team can help you. Visit https://www.digikey.com/en/resources/business-solutions/digital-solutions.

What resources provided by DigiKey are available to customers with regard to digital transformation?

The Digital Solutions page on our website (linked above) offers a variety of resources and information to help you through all stages of your digital transformation. The Free eBook is a good place to begin if you’re just getting started. If you need to justify the cost savings to your leadership and decision-makers, there is an ROI Calculator and template letter to your decision-makers available on the API page

As the supply chain continues to constrain different components at different times, how do you recommend companies be agile in substituting components with the same form/fit/function when engineering resources are constrained?

Some third-parties like Z2 Data have tools like Part Risk Manager that can help, and DigiKey has features within myLists like My Alternates that allow you to expand a row to access any suggested alternates for a product. From this list, you can set your specific approved alternates or enter your own manually. You also have control to swap one of your approved alternates for the active product in the list. The original will then be moved to the list of alternates. Your best option is to work with your engineers to ensure that the products are a suitable substitute.