BACKGROUND
High Bay JEBL Luminaires from Lithonia Lighting is ideal for industrial spaces. There discreet profiles and other benefits make them suitable for price-sensitive projects and applications without compromising performance. High Bay JEBL Luminaries are engineered for a variety of applications, including light-duty warehouses, manufacturing facilities, general open spaces, and wet locations.
CHALLENGE – DESIGN & HIGH COMPONENT QUANTITY
High Bay JEBL Luminaires are manufactured with a wide range of lumen options. They range from 12,000 to 30,000 lumens that require different LED driver designs. In total, there are 16 different driver/housing assemblies, along with eight different PCB assemblies. Typically, housings and drivers are sourced through different suppliers, which results in bringing them in through a local manufacturer or a supply chain company such as MES. Drivers are frequently sourced through various electronic manufacturers, and when sub-assembled with housings, it results in unnecessary and costly voluminous packaging.
Forecasting volumes for these types of components can be challenging, especially when the lighting market demand is forever changing and unpredictable. One explanation is the vast number of new competitive products. Another is the rapid growth in new LED solutions that are quickly and regularly being developed with better energy efficiencies and adoption by the fickle, budget-driven customers. So with product demand in continuous flux and time spent managing component inventory, it creates hours and hours of unnecessary time for organization.
THE SOLUTION
MES specializes in managing complex high-mix-low-volume (HMLV) supply chains. Using its supply chain analytics, MES can achieve over 98% on-time deliveries while sourcing even the extended supply chain lead-times components and assemblies. They consolidate shipments from all major Chinese ports, which provides more optimized shipping costs compared to the customer doing it themselves in less-than-container shipment lots. MES also offers 6-12 weeks of stock in their warehouse based on final customer EAU (estimated annual usage) and supplier MOQ (monthly order quantity) in addition to 4-6 weeks of in-transit. As OEM’s compete in demanding lead-time markets on their customer side and long lead-times for HMLV items on the supply side, they experience tremendous imbalance, shortages, need for air freighting, and often, supplier conflicts.
MES applies its Supply Chain Takeover® model that aligns with the supplier requirements and exceeds customer expectations for quality, delivery, quantity, and timing. It then negotiates for any variances with either customer or supplier to get more optimized supply chain and inventory solution. Finally, it includes these negotiated items in it’s MRP and Supply Chain planning analytics solution to achieve superior and streamlined inventory, service, order fill rates, and hence, a more flexible market position for its customers.
OUTCOME
MES continues to enhance and offer it’s Supply Chain Takeover® solution to new commodities, and new suppliers. This model has proven time and time again to deliver just-in-time inventory to its customers so they can continue to be responsive to their end customers and win market share in their industries.