Supply Chain

An advanced Materials Planning System and ERP, as well as close partnerships with both suppliers and customers, are additional foundations for the value of the PHYTEC Supply Chain.

Purchasing

We strive to ensure the long-term availability of our products and regard this as one of our most important duties as a reliable supplier of embedded solutions.  Purchasing at PHYTEC starts with specification during product development, with components judiciously selected based on:

• longevity, technical characteristics, operating environment, and reliability criteria focused for the industrial market;
• pooling of common components across multiple products;
• close partnerships with manufacturers of critical components – such as processors, memory devices, and PCBs – as well as distribution channels; extensive research by our in-house purchasing teams and insights into current technologies; and
• maintenance of a well-curated Approved Vendor List (AVL), including global and second and source availability.

Careful component selection is augmented by:

• negotiated volume pricing contracts with primary suppliers, which includes “pass through” pricing to our production partners, and
• a specialty in securing EOL and obsolete components to ensure a deliverable lifespan of 10 to even 25 years for PHYTEC products.

Manufacturing

In-House Facilities in Mainz, Germany:  PHYTEC’s ISO-certified internal production capabilities provide the basis of our supply chain flexibility. Production batches range from ultra-to-medium HMLV, in single to hundreds of units, up to tens of thousands of units in continuous build cycles.  Flexible production planning and multi-shift staffing enables supply of prototypes, pilot unit production, First Article validation units, and fast response to pull-in and production ramp requests.

Trusted Production Partners: PHYTEC utilizes external manufacturing partners for optimized volume production and Business Continuity Contingencies.  Production locations include:

• Asia: China and Malaysia
  • Services: Turn-key manufacture, test, and fulfillment of PHYTEC SOMs
  • EAU: 5K to 100K+
  • Production Batch Size: 1K to 5K
  • Quality Conformances: Equivalent to PHYTEC in-house, plus ISO13485, TS16949, AS9100 and ISO14001, TS16949, 6 Sigma
  • Facility in Malaysia serves as a “safe harbor” for China tariffs
• USA: Texas and Seattle
  • Services: Turn-key manufacture and test of PHYTEC SOMs and custom Carrier Boards, “Made in USA” requirements
  • EAU: 10 to 7K
  • Production Batch Size: 50 to 1K
  • Quality Conformances: Equivalent to PHYTEC in-house, plus ISO13485

These partners benefit from pass-through of our contract pricing from key PHYTEC component suppliers.

Customization

PHYTEC’s HMLV production capability provides the foundation for our customization capabilities.  This enables us to tailor product configurations to customer technical requirements and cost barriers by scaling memory densities and processor variants, as well as offering populate/depopulate options.  This customization is managed by:

• customer specific part number, identified by “KSP” in the PHYTEC Part number
• designated components and software / firmware locked in for customer-specific configurations, only changing upon approval by the customer; and
• focused version control and Engineering Change Notices (ECN) for these customer-specific products.

PHYTEC also provides validation units of custom product revisions for qualification.

Supply and Demand Alignment

We leverage PHYTEC’s in-house manufacturing and customization capabilities to tailor product fulfillment to the individual needs of our customers.  These supply logistics include:

• calibration of upstream materials, production planning and buffer stock to meet demand for product;
• blanket Purchase Order framework agreements for up to 18-month rolling time horizons, with push and pull flexibility for designated / estimated dock dates and release schedules; and
• long-term holding and carrying of materials backed by Materials Liability and cancellation agreements.

These supply and demand alignment efforts enable PHYTEC to:

• provide material demand transparency to our supply channels;
• leverage annual volume pricing contracts with critical suppliers; and
• flexibly and responsively plan sufficient materials coverage to meet firm and forecast customer demand.

PHYTEC also engages in extended supply chain arrangements to best address risks to supply chain continuity given evolving market conditions, including:

• Materials Liability agreements for maximum flexibility of Non-Cancelable, Non-Returnable (NCNR) products and components, with week-by-week step-down of liability for allowable cancellation windows in advance of product release dates;
• “close to manufacturing” consignment programs for high-volume customers; and
• Risk-buy, Last-time Buy (LTB) and spot buy of gating, End-of-Life (EOL) “high churn” and other risk components.

Packaging, Labeling and Shipping

PHYTEC offers the following delivery options:

• Shipping: Freight Collect on customer accounts, Multiple “Ship To” locations such as to multiple contract manufacturers on behalf of an end customer
• Documentation: proper documenting of Export Control Classification (ECCN), Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) and other identification required for shipment of product
• Packaging: environmentally friendly and custom packaging options, including multi-unit packaging (boxes, reels), inner packaging, external packaging
• Labeling: EIA-566 3-of-9 (code 39) symbology and other standards, as well as special labeling requests

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Long-Term Sustainability

PHYTEC maintains a dedicated team responsible for monitoring component-level Product Change Notifications (PCNs) and finding fully-compatible migration paths to second source replacement components. This team ensures sustainability of PHYTEC products in the event of upstream obsolescence of parts.

For additional information on PHYTEC’s PLM and Longevity policies read more here.

Quality Assurance

PHYTEC’s internal quality control program encompasses all material, labor, and production inputs.

View our qualifications and standards here.