Project Presentation ISYE 3101 Alex Chen Beatrix Lee

Project Presentation ISYE 3101 Alex Chen Beatrix Lee Joydeep Mukherjee Dewi Santoso

American Megatrends, Inc. Located in suburban Atlanta (Norcross) 15 years old Major products: RAID controllers, motherboards, software utilities (i. e. BIOS), server solutions 600 worldwide employees (small offices in Asia and Europe) Privately owned

Supply-Chain Overview AMI orders parts (PCBs, capacitors, etc. ) AMI order assembly Vendor AMI receiving Contract Manufacturer (i. e. SCI) Production Testing AMI shipping HUB Contract Manufacturer orders parts Customer (HP, Dell) Customer

Product Development Critical to success of the company, influencing the demand for AMI products Departments include BIOS, SCSI, RAID, and motherboards Make-up most of the company’s workforce Company strives to stay “cutting-edge”

Customer Service Needs of two biggest customers, HP & Dell, must always be met AMI is in the very competitive industry of hardware development, so customer service is critical Cooperative RMA department for defective products

Forecasting and Scheduling Done weeks in advance, but often subject to changes Use MRP system Follow JIT philosophy Purchasing department must work closely and well with Production Control Not much seasonality, but upward sloping overall demand for products

Manufacturing Vitel Manufacturing, located walking-distance from AMI headquarters, has exclusive contract with AMI Vitel has nearly 400 employees and 3 shifts Shares its facility with some AMI departments Has 2 primary assembly lines SCI, located in Alabama, makes the HP boards for AMI and they are tested at Vitel

Assembly Incoming PCB first must pass visual inspection Boards are then prepped and scanned into tracking system, SABLE Most parts come from vendors in reels and are put on feeders on lines Some parts require hand assembly Socket assembly

Post Assembly Tests In-Circuit Test (ICT) Voltage is run through boards to make sure they work Functional Test Makes sure a board can do what it is supposed to

Quality Assurance Final visual inspection (random sampling of boards) Sampling testing Software versions consistency ensured HP boards go back to SCI if they fail QA

Parts Inventory Parts needed for builds are kept in Stockroom Thousands of SKUs The Stockroom process is “pull, ” “kit, ” and “audit” parts for a build before they go on the line, where they are checked again for appropriate quantity and type Parts with high holding costs are usually not in the Stockroom long MINX system keeps track of how many parts are in stock

Finished Goods Inventory FGI contains boards that have passed QA Usually has around a thousand boards Leave FGI when a Sales Order is completed Boards have high holding costs, so they are in FGI for as short a time as possible

Transportation • Transport between AMI and SCI is via truckload several times per week • Most products leaving AMI ultimately travel by air to their final destination All PCBs and certain parts imported from Taiwan using air freight

Transportation Costs Airlines charge surcharges due to high fuel costs on international flights Pipeline inventory costs are not critical because of low transport times Fixed cost on transport with SCI, even when less than truckload

Problems Encountered Getting all of the parts in needed for a build Line downtimes Getting SCI to supply boards that were not originally scheduled High turnover rate among employees Keeping the various departments cooperating and happy Future planning to meet growth in sales