Assembling suppliers of assembled cables

A procurement manager at a well-known manufacturer of medical devices and endoscopic equipment needed to find suppliers of assembled cables with ISO 9001 certification to drive efficiency, long-term cost savings, and process improvements.

It had been weeks now with nothing to show for her search efforts. She had already tried all of her usual methods, like scouring internal databases, googling and using ChatGPT, and pestering her network of connections to the point of distraction, but the suppliers she was looking for were proving more elusive than she had thought.

She was facing several challenges. First of all, she was searching for suppliers in a very specific geographic area - Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Poland, Romania, and Ukraine, to be exact, but she knew next to nothing about the supply market in this region.

Then, there was the necessary certification to contend with. Her organization had a strong focus on continuous improvement so the suppliers would have to have ISO 9001 certification , which would lead to better performance, durability, and cost efficiency for the assembled cables.

The thinking was also that working with ISO-certified suppliers would facilitate more effective collaboration, as these suppliers have structured processes in place that would make it easier for her organization to work closely with them on customization, product development, and troubleshooting.

An added bonus would be the longterm cost savings that these suppliers would bring to the table. By working with high quality, ISO-certified suppliers, they could reduce the need for extensive incoming quality inspections or costly rework due to defects, saving a lot of time and money in the long run.

If she succeeded in finding these suppliers, her organization would be able to ensure consistent quality, regulatory compliance, and long-term costeffectiveness, while also enhancing their competitive advantage in the medical device market. That would result in quite a few high fives from her colleagues.

If she failed, well, she didn’t really want to think about it, but the company could be at risk of product failures or recalls, which would prove extremely costly in terms of finances and reputation - her own reputation included…

This was when she turned to Scoutbee Discovery, a supplier scouting tool that her organization had recently licensed. She hadn’t used it herself yet but had heard good things about it from some of her colleagues. And really, at this stage, even if it produced one or two suppliers, it would still be better than the zero that she currently had!

She opened up Discovery and was relieved to see that the search form looked pretty straightforward. She started entering her search criteria - assembled cables for the medical sector, keywords like cables, assembling, crimping, drive cable, motor cable, flat cable… She was quite impressed that she could be this specific about her search. Google and ChatGPT would have probably exploded trying to deal with this level of detail! Finally, she entered her ISO 9001 certification requirement and the desired geographic locations the suppliers should be in. And search!

Discovery informed her that it would return a list of suppliers that matched her criteria within a day or two. She crossed her fingers that it would deliver…

24 hours later, she could hardly believe her eyes - Scoutbee had returned a longlist of 101 suppliers!

She laughed to think that she’d been hoping it would return just one! Once she’d gotten over the initial excitement, she saw that the

suppliers of assembled cables were ranked in order of relevance, their profiles enriched with information on revenue, employees, and certifications.

After a little discussion with her team, they decided to invite seven of the suppliers for an RFP. Four of them submitted a proposal and they were really happy with the results.

High fives all round!

She was astonished by how easy the whole process had been and how fast Scoutbee Discovery had found all of these previously unknown suppliers.

She was 100% sure that she never could have achieved these results using traditional methods by herself.

Now, her organization had a wider pool of suppliers of assembled cables that they knew they could rely on.

The ISO 9001 certification meant that collaboration with these suppliers would be much more efficient, driving efficiencies within her own organization and, ultimately, leading to significant cost savings.

And, last but not least, no loss of reputation for either her or her organization - all in all, a total win-win situation!

If you’re looking for a way to save costs in your supply chain, get in touch with us today to see how we can help.