How Molex New Product Sourcing and Design Teams Successfully Deliver Their Innovation Commitments to Customers

Product design can have a seriously outsized impact on the overall value chain related to product cost. This reality relative to cost means component and material prices are highly scrutinized during New Product Development (NPD) and can unintentionally distract from other aspects of NPD sourcing that are critical for meeting time-to-market objectives and providing supply chain resiliency throughout the product lifecycle.

Customer expectations are also rising in relation to NPD. There is an array of new requirements vital to supporting innovation with reliability and speed—and a powerful, consistent supply chain is one of these. Molex design teams look to our procurement and supply chain teams to support our NPD teams with a global, industry leading supply base and materials sourcing process that aligns with our customer needs. To support this critical priority, Molex has co-located NPD sourcing engineers in design centers around the world.

To ensure that we measure what matters, we have established four “Design for” process areas to ensure Molex’s NPD sourcing effectiveness: 

• Design for Architectural Cost: Transparent and rapid communication with our suppliers regarding component cost and cost drivers is essential to meeting target BOM costs. If targets are missed, our NPD teams collaborate with suppliers to prepare an action plan to close the gap. 

• Design for Supply Chain: We’ve found that effective collaboration between engineering and procurement focused on “Design for” supply chain principles will result in a product with improved agility, reduced supply chain costs and lower supply chain risk. Early visibility of potential issues allows us to work with engineers and our suppliers to find alternatives.  

• Design for Procurement: Our design teams leverage a comprehensive preferred supplier network that considers the specific material provided, as well as the geography and any special customer or industry requirements. Our goal is to build stronger supplier relationships with “best-in-class” preferred suppliers to move beyond the mindset of “best component at the cheapest price.”  

• Design for Time to Market: Product development and launch cycle time leverages supply visibility through Molex’s Intelligent Digital Supply Chain to enable product sourcing to identify and mitigate potential issues that could impact product development schedules.

The “Design for” methodology requires deep collaboration with customers, supply chain partners and other stakeholders. Within the collaboration, “Design for” utilizes data-driven intelligence capabilities to design in component optionality. It also allows these teams to effectively leverage actionable insights on technologies, materials and suppliers to help our design teams make effective sourcing decisions.  Access to real-time data informs us of opportunities and risks so we can plan for potential obstacles during the design phase and adjust as the product matures.

Our ultimate goal is to innovate cost-effective, reliable products for our customers throughout the product lifecycle.  Within procurement, the “Design for” methodology supports that critical objective and enables Molex to deliver world-class innovation on behalf of our customers.