Succeeding at Strategic Sourcing With Arena and Part Analytics
Learn more about the integration between Arena and Part Analytics here.
Full transcript below:
Heatherly Bucher
Welcome to our session on Succeeding at Strategic Sourcing. Today, Arena and Part Analytics have come together to share the story of one of our joint customers as a case study.
We’ll explore their strategic sourcing program, their prior situation, challenges and pain points, and the results they realize with a connected collaboration between Arena and Part Analytics. Then we’ll look at what’s ahead for these companies as well as what’s happening in the market and how companies looking to make changes can do things as time and cost effectively as possible.
But before we get started, let’s tell you who we are. Jesil, I’m going to let you introduce yourself first and then I’ll follow after you.
Jesil Pujara
Thanks, Heatherly, for the introduction. As Heatherly mentioned, my name is Jesil Pujara and I’m Co-Founder and Head of Product at Part Analytics. I have over 15 years of design engineering experience, including leading teams across large organizations such as Schneider Electric and GE Healthcare.
Before Part Analytics, I led engineering efforts to improve design and production efficiency to standardized parts across divisions. That’s where I saw the need for a solution that helps engineering and sourcing teams to collaborate internally and externally while leveraging the scale of technology. At Part Analytics, I lead all things related to product to help solve our customer’s problems in electronics supply chain.
Heatherly Bucher
Thanks, Jesil. I’m super excited to be here today with you and this partnership. For everyone today, I’m Heatherly Bucher with Arena a PTC business.
I lead our strategic alliances and partnership programs. I’ve spent most of my career, decades, in PLM and QMS platform solutions for discrete product manufacturers. I’ve worked from a range of startups to enterprise organizations across multiple industries, high-tech, life sciences, and FAND primarily.
My priority in my role today is making our customers as successful as possible with their Arena platforms, and partnerships are part of that. So we’re committed to making it easy as possible with partnerships in our Arena developer platform to connect Arena to all the other critical systems our customers use to design, manufacture, and deliver products. This commitment was what led us to partner with Part Analytics. As our customers have added Part Analytics to their tech stack, we knew we wanted to partner and deliver together the value of connecting these two systems.
So Jesil, tell us a bit more about what Part Analytics the platform is.
Jesil Pujara
Part Analytics is a supply management platform for direct materials, product design, sourcing, and procurement. We automate direct materials, data integration, ingestion and sourcing processes, and help organizations build supply chain resilience, accelerate product development, and improve gross margin. Engineering and sourcing professionals build the platform for engineering and sourcing. And we are used by Fortune 500 enterprises and SMBs alike to gain, spend, and supply intelligence and leverage it with seamless collaboration throughout product lifecycles and sourcing activities.
Heatherly Bucher
Thanks for that introduction to Part Analytics, Jesil. For our audience, if you are not an Arena customer, let me tell you a little bit about Arena.
We are a PLM and QMS platform focused on the needs of discrete product manufacturers in three verticals, high-tech, consumer products, medical device, and the regulated FAND space. Our customers compete on how not only their product, how they innovate with their product, but also how well they build and run their supply chains to get to market faster with high quality and within targeted margins. As a native multi-tenant cloud solution, Arena provides companies with a fast path to immediate value as well as an expansive platform they can scale to support their journey.
As our customer’s manager, as design builds and materials and all engineering changes in Arena, it’s exciting to connect to platforms like Part Analytics to seamlessly collaborate on sourcing decisions. Our joint customer today that we want to talk about is Digi. Digi has graciously shared their story with us and we’re going to be sharing it with you.
Digi International provides IoT connectivity, product services and solutions for a wide range of industries and applications from enterprise and industrial to transportation and smart cities. Digi has had Arena in place for over seven years and adopted Part Analytics in 2021.
Before we talk about Digi’s experience connecting the two systems, we want to talk about how they use Arena in Part Analytics. So first I’m going to share a little bit about why Digi put Arena in place and what they’ve accomplished with Arena, and then Jesil’s going to tell you a bit about why they put Part Analytics in place.
So for Digi, Arena serves as a single source of truth for the product teams to manage builds of materials and associated engineering changes. At the time of the Arena purchase, Digi ran different engineering change processes for each product line, and as the number of product lines grew, and the complexity, they saw their cycle times just grow and expand as they manually needed to coordinate to see all these interdependencies and opportunities to improve across all product lines. So that was the primary pain point where they knew they needed a single source of truth across all products for all product teams to manage these interdependencies, if you will, and opportunities in the engineering change process.
So Jesil, Digi adopted Part Analytics couple of years ago after they’d run Arena for, I think about five years or four years. So why don’t you share a bit about how they were managing supply chain and product development processes connected to supply chain before Part Analytics?
Jesil Pujara
Yeah, definitely. So Digi primarily managed their supply chain and product development processes through disparate systems. Their engineering teams relied on the PLM system to handle product designs and bill of materials while the supply chain and sourcing teams use separate platforms such as ERP for bi-level, and then spreadsheets for tier two and below, such as electronic components. This often resulted in inefficiencies due to a lack of real-time data sharing and synchronization across departments.
Heatherly Bucher
Oh, spreadsheets. So that in itself is a pain point or challenge, but what were specific challenges or pain points that prompted Digi’s search for a solution like Part Analytics besides the spreadsheets, or maybe including the spreadsheets?
Jesil Pujara
Digi faced several challenges, so including auto sync forecast and risk for electronics, again, due to disparate systems where bills of materials are in PLM and ERP has the bi-level forecast, and again, the electronic component level information forecast and as such resides in spreadsheets. So this led to frequent manual updates and inaccurate visibility to spend and risk specifically down to electronic components. And this significantly slowed down their product development cycle and created risk in supply chain prompting them to seek for a more integrated solution.
Heatherly Bucher
So there’s the background; that’s how Digi found Arena and Part Analytics. Now, once Digi had Part Analytics in place, they still encounter pain because Arena and Part Analytics were not connected. So they had Arena, they had Part Analytics for the specific processes that we both helped them manage, but there was no digital data flows to support those processes.
So drilling down, Jesil, can you explain the issues caused by out-of-sync BOMs and diverging data sources with these disconnected great systems, but disconnected?
Jesil Pujara
Yeah. Out-of-sync BOMs occur when changes made by engineering teams are not instantly reflected across the supply chain and sourcing platforms. So this results in misalignment, which can lead to risks within supply chain, such as hard-to-find electronic components, lifecycle risk, increased cost, which in turn impacts ability to meet customer demand, and delay, and that delays product launches. Diverging data sources compound these issues and as teams operate without the unified view, it leads to miscommunications and inefficiencies within the system.
Heatherly Bucher
So Jesil, I’m curious, do these challenges that Digi faced, do they represent most of your customers or do you hear about other pain points from customers? How typical or atypical were Digi’s challenges?
Jesil Pujara
We see this often among our customers and industry at large—is especially prominent and perhaps most impactful in high-demand and in fast-moving electronics spaces. Most of our customers come to us seeking better data integration and synchronization across various platforms to ultimately enable real time and their most confident sourcing and business decisions.
And we are the resulting virtuous cycle, boost their operational efficiency.
Heatherly Bucher
I love the virtuous cycle. So to solve the remaining pain points that we just talked about, Digi connected Arena and Part Analytics, and that really, again, Digi’s one of our earliest joint customers and we were thrilled that they put both systems in place and then recognized that there was going to be additional value in connecting the system.
So through our partnership, we co-developed an easy-to-implement, low-code connection using Arena’s event engine, or low-code event engine, that sits on top of Arena’s rest API and the Part Analytics IQ suite.
For Digi’s volume and activity level, they find a weekly sync between Arena and Part Analytics workspace. Now, later at the end of our time today, don’t worry, we will tell you how to get more information about the connection between Arena and Part Analytics as well as, of course, information about both platforms.
What we want to do now is talk about results, what they saw as the measurable benefits to connecting, putting both systems in place and connecting them. So Jesil, can you share about some of those benefits that Digi has realized?
Jesil Pujara
Yeah, so Digi has seen substantial benefits off paper, things like improved synchronization of BOMs or as you said, the bill of materials, enhanced collaboration across sourcing, engineering, and other functions. And more informed decision-making capabilities, which have all led to faster product development cycles and reduced supply chain risks and cost. These benefits translated to on-paper benefits of 50% efficiency gains 2x their RFQ cycles.
So it’s essentially cutting down their RFQ cycle in half and improve the negotiation process as well as the speed, and numerous realized savings with some additional opportunities identified through this exercise.
Heatherly Bucher
That’s amazing. Fifty percent efficiency gains in 2x their RFQ cycle. How has the integration transformed Digi’s approach to product development and supply chain management?
Jesil Pujara
Yeah, the integration has transformed Digi’s approach by enabling real-time data sharing and collaboration, making their processes more agile and responsive. It has bridged the gap between engineering and supply chain teams and thereby enhancing their ability to respond to market changes more swiftly.
Heatherly Bucher
And your team in particular has worked really closely with their supply chain team. And can you share about the feedback you’ve received from internal teams and the external partners that Digi works with about these changes?
Jesil Pujara
Yeah, we have gotten some great feedback and it’s been very positive both internally and externally from both teams. The internal teams appreciate the reduced workload and decreased error rates and have some more precision in their forecast while the external partners have noted that they have seen tangible improvement in communication and operational transparency and speed as well.
Heatherly Bucher
And are there other areas within Digi’s operations where this integration could be beneficial?
Jesil Pujara
Yeah, we think so. Some areas that would include our areas like customer service and quality assurance. Real-time data and seamless communication are always crucial in both. And the benefits we have discussed, we certainly work to help those functions as well.
Heatherly Bucher
And as you’re talking with Digi, as we’re both talking with Digi, how do they plan to continue evolving and improving their supply chain management strategies?
Jesil Pujara
They’re really focusing on RFQ and negotiation activities. That’s really the next logical step and understanding that and understanding really and mastering the risk management. So we have the data syncs, data access, and collaboration pieces as the fundamental foundation, and now they continue to enhance their RFQ cycles for components with the analysis of the data and best practice processes to get the most bang for their buck, so to speak. This can then translate to having cost visibility across their contract manufacturing base as well.
Heatherly Bucher
So let’s step back from Digi and more broadly talk about Part Analytics. First, what pain points might a company have that would indicate it’s time for Digital platform like Part Analytics, Jesil?
Jesil Pujara
Yeah, at the high level, there are four specific areas that we see it. The lack of spend visibility. So if you’re finding it hard to track and analyze cost risk inventory, alternative suppliers effectively, or if you lack critical market data that impacts cost modeling and decision-making, it’s a sign that your current tools are not giving you the visibility that you need.
A second area is around silo disparate data. So similar to Digi case, right? When the data is disconnected and isolated within different divisions, business units or different systems, it becomes impossible to leverage or even just use organizational knowledge. This fragmentation hinders strategic decisions and can prevent a unified approach to managing the supply chain. Another area is integrated technology and manual processes, right?
So if your teams are relying heavily on Excel or other manual processes for important tasks, you’re likely facing increased errors and inefficiencies.
Such outdated methods can significantly limit your ability to collaborate and react quickly to market changes resulting in higher cost and missed opportunities.
Last but not least, it’s around supplier engagement or poor supply engagement. When engagements with suppliers and third parties are fragmented and negotiations are infrequent or ineffective, it suggests a need for better integration and relationship management. A digital platform can provide more consistent and effective communication, improving negotiations, and also strengthening relationships.
Heatherly Bucher
Thanks. What’s interesting, of course, Jesil, is maybe not so much the first pain point has been visibility, but what we see when customers come and find Arena for our PLM and QMS environment, the other three pain points, of course, are also what drives them to a PLM system in that drive to produce product at quality, at speed, within budgets, that siloed disparate data, those antiquated technologies, spreadsheets, and poor supply chain management and engagement. So I definitely resonate with this because these are very much a lot of the pain points that we see Arena customers coming to us with as well.
So let’s talk though about how Part Analytics, or the sourcing activities, helps solve these pain points.
Jesil Pujara
So the way it works, it’s really more of a comprehensive supply management platform built with modules to address each of these major pain points that we have been talking about along with related issues. In a nutshell, we connect and harmonize datasets, eliminating silos, then enrich and visualize those connected data with AI-powered insights and alerts to proactively identify, mitigate potential disruptions, identify potential opportunities for cost savings along the way.
These harmonized data insights include things like availability, lead times, cost, obsolescence, and end-of-life risk and more. And it’s data from accessible. It is data from an accessible to your entire organization at every category, from component to bill of materials to product. You can take those data and insights to your suppliers and leverage it to your negotiate… and do it to negotiate.
And that’s both right contract manufacturers as well as your electronic component suppliers. And because the platform automates processes and data aggregation, there’s no more manual reporting and then errors coming out of that. And that also speeds up the RFQ cycle significantly as well. And on average, we see multiple benefits.
We see spend visibility down to multiple layers within your supply chain. We see around, on average, 10% cost savings, significant efficiency gains, and speed improvement for negotiations as well. So it really helps our customers to gain, to realize efficiency gains, and they start seeing benefits from day one.
Heatherly Bucher
That’s great. And then for your roadmap, what do you want to share that’s coming in Part Analytics that Digi and other Arena customers would find valuable?
Jesil Pujara
Yeah. Our goal is to continue to grow our product to support various aspects of electronic sourcing and lifecycle. Our near-term focus is to help our customers improve supply chain resiliency by further enhancing collaboration between sourcing and engineering teams so that the right components are picked early in the design phase.
We’ll also be releasing several features in next one to two quarters to help our customers like Digi to stay ahead of the curve for building these programs or looking to digitally transform via connected digital solution.
Heatherly Bucher
Oh, that’s great. Do you have some key concepts you want to maybe leave our audience with regards to intelligent sourcing and building that resiliency?
Jesil Pujara
There are two key areas of focus, right? One would be, have a good handle on existing supply chain processes and identify inefficiencies and areas that could benefit from a tech upgrade because that’s when you set clear goals, whether it’s cutting costs, speeding up processes, or improving data accuracy or getting visibility further down in the supply chain. It’s crucial to know what you’re aiming for and what you want to achieve from these tools.
The second area of concept would be to have a good handle on your data. Make sure you have everything you want to have ready to integrate. Also, digital transformation isn’t just about installing a software, you’re preparing your organization and team for a change. So get training in place to support them, adjust your strategies based on their feedback, which at the end really improves the adoption of these technologies.
This not only smooths the transition, but also ensures that your tools are used effectively across your organization from the start, and then keep refining and innovating and you will see your supply chain become more efficient and responsive.
Heatherly Bucher
I think that’s fabulous. We would echo the same right at Arena. I love your line. Digital transformation isn’t just about installing software. I would actually say it’s mostly not about installing software, it’s mostly about what you just mentioned, which is understanding processes and understanding your data and how processes across systems and across these core data sets connect, right? That’s actually what’s the most important part about digital transformation that we’ve found. And I do love your comment as well, keep refining and innovating.
I think I am sure you could share stories as well, but I think sometimes we work with customers who want to do everything from day one. And you can get a bit of analysis paralysis or get stuck ever launching to get to refining and innovating if you’re trying to map out everything initially.
So there’s that crawl, walk, run, which we all hear, we all talk about, but sometimes people don’t practice.
So I think those are great concepts that you called out. So before we close out, I’d love to talk about trends. If we use our crystal ball, what trends do you believe companies should be paying attention to that will impact their sourcing programs?
Jesil Pujara
Yeah, maybe an obvious answer, which is the buzzword lately, but like it or not, it’s focusing on trends of AI and leveraging machine learning technologies.
And I say that because I think over last 10, 15 years, the focus has been that we need to have the data, we need to have the data, and we are at a point where we have lots and lots of data, good or bad, but lots of data.
So it’s really about contextualizing it and using that data to do the predictive analytics and then also emphasizing on cybersecurity and the importance of sustainability in sourcing strategies. They’re all going to be significantly altered, and we’ll start seeing the impact of that in near future.
Heatherly Bucher
I certainly agree with you. We also, I think Arena’s crystal ball also, we have done a great job over the last, like you said, 10 to 15 years with technologies and the companies have been able to collect a lot of data. It’s now how do companies use the data, right? And certainly we also see that AI and machine learning provides a lot of potential to successfully navigate the data to find, like you said, things like predictive analysis, trends, drive innovation, improve the efficiencies of the discrete product manufacturing process.
Jesil Pujara
Yeah.
Heatherly Bucher
Jesil, thank you for joining me to talk about how product companies can succeed at strategic sourcing by utilizing platforms like Arena and Part Analytics in a connected digital data flow that supports their processes, everything that Digi has accomplished.
For our audience today, we have some resources for you. You can read about Digi’s success by visiting either arenasolutions.com, Arena’s website, or partanalytics.com and navigating to our customer story or customer highlight areas of the website, either website.
If you have both our systems and you are interested in connecting the two, please do visit Arena’s marketplace at arenasolutions.com to read about the low-code connector that you can put in place. You’ll find information there about the functionality as well as a way to engage Arena and Part Analytics to help you put it in place.
If you are not yet a customer of either platform, or you have one but not the other and are interested in learning more, please reach out to us directly at the emails listed on the screen. Or of course, you can visit our websites and click on the “Get demo” buttons or use the chat features, etc., to connect to us.
Easy enough to find us and connect to us.
Thank you for joining us today. I hope this has been an interesting topic for you and your team as you consider how to improve your strategic sourcing motions.
Read more about how the integration between Arena and Part Analytics helped Digi break down operational silos here.